

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


Shelf...c..fb. 


4 




c 



c 


k 


r: <c cc « 


c 


V 

c 

<< ■■ <jC t--' 

4. 







"MU 

jw.'V ^ -3 ^ *v 

sMs'm.-f 

- 1 


, viKlKJKL - . ' BMCVn^H ' . ' ' 'V ' ' ' 

^ .It ■ V^:;^•v" u||l| 

'v-':vir.'^?ftt^«'.',- ■• fcAVv-’ .-.-^ Hnn 

>ry»iiP:taTfativt>?y7> awiMt: jgiwi. . . ;a^B| 









''.ta 


^ 4 


• 1 


* * * • 


► , IS. Hi 




K <» 


•♦ - 



• •I - wVjJflUA 4 ^1^1 





. A'yi-. 



“Vi * 


•>’ ■; - ■ ■: : i' 

y^,.. .: .. .. ,,. . _■■ 




«. . 



r •» 


► « « 


n^: ' ■’■t'.'V * ^ , 

V\V. ' 


1^4** . ■ -f \ 





. ^ 


.u 


•• ¥ 


»• 





* • 9 


i I 


I ' 


' ’-v •• 

I, . T . , 




‘'•>i 





v*/' - , ■, '■ ■ 'r, ■ M ::‘'^. ' 

I ■ » •.».*»•' .”'\ . «* u< » :* ' 





^ '"r. -• t-V ^ . .’•■t 

* ^ ^ ^ V ^ ^ V 1 HkAkA2S 


' *e 


n 


■ ^ ■. • .sxfi*- 




'./ 


* 4»V-.'’ 





.'t 




Ay 


• I 


. ' \ 


U' 


< * 




" * .'-!«' •’ '* 

V ‘ • A/‘v 1* • • 'I . 






■.A". ■ 






t • 


I 1 





Vi 


\y 


»• 


• >> 


« # 



* * t 


/. V ’ 


», 


• » 


• t 






■*: '♦ 


i9M 








— * ’ *■'* * ' ?4‘vL ' 


> . .-oiv^Y' ■*''1 ■ 



I. 






J , 




J.- . 

V T • 




♦ ^ • 


. -I ^ . 

. f 


* , » 

9 


1. •^ 


^ I r 


• < 


. * • 

♦• 4 « 


Vi 


/ . '■ .■I’iV/t u-v' 
, , .■■>/ ." V ' 


' Sff-. 


L. 

t 


K * 


• ^ 



n 


i r • I 

•.*1 


f/.- 




- . y 

• * 
• ^ t 


• • • * • ^ I 

I 4 • • i 


« • 


I f 


’rt' * ’ *. > 

♦ • ./ f •' < • 

' « •» .* . • j. w., L, 

' • ■'Vi ' ' '■ ^* 

"is 


4 





4t 


V ; ^ 


k t 








•1 . ^ -• .• 

^ " » %»N ^ 

V 


.•t‘ 


- . ? 


' V 
I 


' £* 


.U ^ • ■' 




i^:’ I'-'i '"'>■>■' 


/ 


.* ; 


«■ 
"> » 




‘ ^ V 

► J *• 







' / 


' ■ tr./'fr 


^ <^'« %• » * * 

✓ 


* ^ •. . <“ ' ■ • '.aJTI 


H‘ 


» 

• < 


•' ' 1 *■ 




I I 


y * 

V ••; 


t * 


4 \f* 


t 


: r/' 




t >'^* 


i',‘ i 


t'Vxti 'if *■ r • 

[i . -.-V* TSV 

^ I • * , * k 




ff 


yi: 


✓ ^*0 




’♦'‘-I* 

*- 


• ii y 


« 


* .-n 


. .. *1 “ 


\ 


■»■■»»; ; 


• s 

♦V- 

i'- 


ntfff .'i/j^' 

7r''¥;.*.V 


■ ■% 


•r 






♦! 


^ .1^ 




'vV;.. * 


'•f'r -4 




•• . 




4 


••' I ■* 


it''. 




^ 







>>'V 


,✓* * V .. - 

-rJ^ ; i*i t ' 


y 5 




I f 


■^ ' 'V. - . '• -t . .V^ V -v- 

f»J . Vj’ * ^’ • >/ '•••**^\ f 4 * ‘ •’ "*' ^ i *' *" 

f':’ .*?r' '■• ■"■ " ' " g->-' 




■ '• ”, V. ' • 

r • * 


•K‘. . 


f . 




* f .', 


i • 




» I 


i 




' v- ' ' 


' *. ' 

.,• •> 'A'^ V •.' 

U y'-f • 

,4 • ,'v A ' ' i 

* ■ • • '4 • ri\ ’■ * * ’ • 




<t^ 


m 


s' 


, > 




•% 






i^' V ‘ v1»* , 

‘ V ■ ... • •• . . 


^ • 


tSpCLiTOfeiT i . "L 

f’ '.'• ,s. ‘ ./h vw<)^*5l ' • nMniiBr 

'"?•'■ ■■ ■■!•'■■' V •^' 't 5- . .. ■'* •■•■rf' if,:' \ ‘f 


V T" 

#4 • » 


s ^ 




;r: .: 


'.♦’vi 




POCKET EDITION. 

UNCHANGED AND UNABRIDGED. 


By miss M. E. BRADDON, 


17 TO 27 V/^OCWfl.lE^ 5>i 


FOR SALE BY LEADING HOUSES. 


Rll genuine REGATTA SILKS BEAR THE 

ABOVE TRADE MARK (Co/j/ of £d^vard Morons painting of the NY Yacht 
c/ub ftegarfa J88^) ON END OFEYERYPIECE AND ON THE WRAPPER 




MADAME WARREK’S DRESS FORM CORSET. 

Patented Sept. 27th, 1881, and Dec. ISth, 1881. 
Extra loilg-waisted. Unbreakable over the hips. The 
only Corset over which a dress can be fitted to perfec- 
tion. BEWARE OF IMITATIONS. , None genuine 
unless stamped “ Mme. Warren'‘s Dress Foi'm Corset.’’'' 


THE S. C. CORSET. 

This is the latest novelty in French style Corsets, 
and especially adapted for Spring and Summer wear. 
It is made of extra heavy single Alexandra cloth, very 
long-waisted and double-boned all through, also double 
front steels. Manufactured in several qualities. For 
sale by dealers everywhere. Prices from $1 up. 

LEWIS SCHIELE & CO., 

390 Broadway, New York. 




liADIES! 


If you appreciate a Corset that will neither break down nor roll up in wear, 
TRY BALiLi'S CORSETS. 

If you value health and comfort, 

WEAR BAET/S CORSETS. 

If you desire a Corset that fits the first day you wear it, and needs no 
“breaking in,” 

BUY BA EE’S CORSETS. 

If you desire a Corset that yields with every motion of the body, 
EXAMINE BAlil/S CORSETS. 

If you want a perfect fit and support without compression, 

USE BA EE’S CORSETS. 

Owing to their peculiar construction it is impossible to break steels in 
Ball’s Corsets. 

The Elastic Sections in Ball’s Corsets contain no rubber, and are warranted 
to out-wear the Corset. 

Every pair sold with the following guarantee: 

“ If not perfectly satisfactory in every respect after three weeks’ 
trial, the money paid fur them will be refunded (by the dealer). 
Soiled or I'nsoiled.” 


The wonderful popularity of Ball’s Corsets has induced rival manufacturers 
to imitate them. If you want a Corset that will give perfect satisfaction, 
insist on purchasing one marked, 

Patented Feb. 22 , 1881 . 

And see that the name BA EE is on the box ; also Guarantee of the 

Chicago Corset t!o. 

AWARDED HIGHEST PRIZES WHEREVER EXHIBITED. 

For Sale l>y all I..ea<liii^ llry Oootli^ Ilealers in the 
liuitetl Slate!i», Ctinada and ICngland. 


/ 


BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER: 

A FEW DAYS AMONG 

OUR SOUTHERN BRETHREN. 

BY HENRY M. FIELD, D.D., 

Author of From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn^" “ From Egypt 
to Japan," "On the Desert," "Among the Holy Hills," and 
" The Greek Islands, and Turkey after the War." 


Of Doctor Field’s new book the New York Observer says: “ Doctor Field has 
written many good books of travel in foreign lands; but this little book of 
letters from our own United States, and which he has called ‘ Blood is Thicker 
THAN Water,’ will be judged by many to be the best of all.” 

The New York Independent says: “ The volume has a large part of its charm 
in the fact that it is brimming over with reminiscences of the war, pictures of 
battles succeeded by peace, with handshakings of Federals and Confederates, 
all content now to belong to one general United States. Doctor Field has suc- 
ceeded wonderfully in investing with rare interest a somewhat prosaic and 
common tour by connecting it with the high sentiments of patriotism and na- 
tional faith. While the volume is written for the ordinary intelligent reader, 
may we venture to remark that it is just such a book as we would like to put in 
the hands of the young; and which, though not professedly a religious book, 
we should be very glad to have shove out of the Sunday-school Library many 
more pious but really less Christian and less useful volumes.” 

The New York World says: ‘'■Doctor Field’s brilliant descriptions of the 
scenes visited, his reminiscences of the war, taken from the lips of ex-Confeder- 
ate officers, the vivid contrast he draws between the horrors of battle and the 
present plenty and contentment of peace and prosperity, delight the reader 
and lead to the regret that the volume is not twice as long as it is. . . . It is 
not merely a pleasing book of travel; it is a volume which should have a wide 
influence in further cementing the bonds which now hold the north and soutli 
together in the strength and affection of indissoluble union.” 


For Sale by all Booksellers and Newsdealers. 

PRICE 25 CENTS. 


Sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of 25 cents. Address, ; •* ii 

^ - V , GEORGE MUNRO, 

MUNRO’S PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

17 to ‘^7 Vnndewater Street, New York. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT; 

OR, 

“LOVE THAT HATH US IN HIS NET.” 


BY 



NEW YORK: 

GEORGE MUNRO, PUBLISHER, 


17 TO 27 Yandettater Street. 


MISS M. E. BEADDON^S WORKS 

CONTAINED IN THE SEASIDE LIBRARY (POCKET EDITION) : 


NO. PRICE. 

35 Lady Aud ley’s Secret . 20 
56 Phantom Fortune . . 20 

74 Aurora Floyd .... 20 
110 Under the Red Flag. . 10 
153 The Golden Calf ... 20 

204 Vixen 20 

211 The Octoroon .... 10 

234 Barbara; or, Splendid 

Misery 20 

263 An Ishmaelite .... 20 
315 The Mistletoe Bough. 
Edited by Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

434 Wyllard’s Weird ... 20 
478 Diavola; or. Nobody’s 

Daughter. Part I . 20 

478 Diavola; or, Nobody’s 

Daughter. Part II . 20 

480 Married in Haste. Ed- 
ited by Miss M. E. 
Braddon 20 

487 Put to the Test. Edited 

by Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

488 Joshua Haggard’s Daugh- 

ter 20 

489 Rupert Godwin ... 20 

495 Mount Royal .... 20 

496 Only a \V oman. Edited 

by Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

497 The Lady’s Mile ... 20 

498 Only a Clod .... 20 

499 The Cloven Foot ... 20 
511 A Strange World . . , 20 
515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant . . 20 
524 Strangers and Pilgrims 20 
529 The Doctor’s Wife . , 20 
542 Fenton’s Quest . . . 20 



PRICE- 


Cut by the County; or, 
Grace Darnel . . * ’ . 10 

The Fatal Marriage, and 
The Shadow in the 

Corner 10 

Dudley Carleon; or. The 
Brother’s Secret, and 
George Caulfield’s Jour- 
ney 10 

Hostages to Fortune . . 20 

Birds of Prey .... 20 
Charlotte’s Inheritance. 
(Sequel to “Birds of 

Prey ”) 20 

To the Bitter End ... 20 
Taken at the Flood . . 20 

Asphodel ..... 20 
J ust As I Am ; or, A Liv- 
ing Lie 20 

Dead Men’s Shoes . . 20 
John Marchmont’s Leg- 
acy 20 

The Mistletoe Bough. 
Christmas, 1885. Ed- 
ited by Miss M. E. 

Braddon 20 

One Thing Needful; 
or, The Penalty of 

Fate .20 

Mohawks 20 

The Mistletoe Bough. 
Christmas, 1886. Ed- 
ited by Miss M. E. 
Braddon .... 20 
Weavers and Weft; or, 
“Love that Hath Us 
in His Net.” ... 20 


NO. 

544 

548 

549 

552 

553 

554 

557 

559 

560 

561 

567 

570 

618 

840 

881 

890 

943 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


CHAPTER L 

AT THE STAB AND GAETER. 

Glorious June weather, tender moonlight from a moon 
newly risen — a mystical light — silver-bright on far-off 
glimpses of the winding river, soft and mysterious where it 
falls upon the growing darkness of the woodland; a pensive 
light, by which men not altogether given up to the world 
are apt to ponder the deeper enigmas of this life, and to 
look backward. Heaven knows with what keen agonies of 
regret, to youth that has vanished and friends that are 
dead. 

Two men who had been dining at the Star and Garter, 
and who have stolen away from the dessert to smoke their 
cigars under the midsummer moon, contemplate the famil- 
iar landscape in a lazy, meditative silence. One is sitting 
on the stone balustrade of the terrace, with his face turned 
to the distant curve of the river, watching the tender light 
with a very somber expression of countenance; the other 
stands with his elbows resting on the balustrade, smoking 
industriously, and looking every now and then with rather 
an uneasy glance at his companion. 

The first is Sir Cyprian Davenant, the last scion of a 
good old Kentish family, and owner of one of the finest and 
oldest places in the county of Kent. The Davenants have 
been a wild reckless set for the last hundred years, and 
there is not an acre of Davenant Park or a tree in Davenant 
woods unencumbered by mortgage. How Sir Cyprian lives 
and contrives to keep out of a debtor^s prison is a subject 
for the wonder of his numerous acquaintances. His in- 
timate friends know that the man has few expensive habits 


G 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


and that he has a small income from an estate inherited 
from his mother. 

Sir Cyprian ^s companion is a man approaching middle 
age, with a decidedly plain face, redeemed from ugliness by 
a certain brightness of expression about the mouth and 
eyes. This gentleman is James Morton Wyatt, a solicitor, 
with an excellent practice, and a decided taste for litera- 
ture, which he is rich enough to be able to cultivate at his 
leisure, leaving the ordinary run of cases to the care .of his 
junior partner, and only putting in an appearance at his 
office when an affair of some importance is on hand. 
James Wyatt is a bachelor and a great favorite with the 
fair sex, for whom his fashionable modern cynicism seems 
to possess an extraordinary charm. The cynic has a nat- 
ural genius for the art of flattery, and a certain subtle power 
of pleasing that surj^rises his male acquaintance, who won- 
der what the women can see in this fellow, with his long, 
mean-looking nose, and his small gray eyes, and his inces- 
sant flow of shallow talk. 

“ You^re not very lively company to-night, Davenant,^^ 
James Wyatt said, at last. ‘‘ IVe been waiting with ex- 
emplary patience for some kind of reply to the question I 
asked you about a quarter of an hour ago.^^ 

‘‘You can scarcely expect much liveliness from a man 
who is going to start for Africa in four-and-twenty hours, 
with a very vague prospect of coming back again. 

“ Well, I donT know about that. It^s a pleasure trip, 
isuH it, this African exploration business?^ ^ 

“ It is to be called pleasure, I believe. My share in it 
would never have come about but for a promise to an old 
friend. It is a point of honor with me to go. The prom- 
ise was given five or six years ago, when I was hot upon the 
subject. I expect very little enjoyment from the business 
now, but I am bound to go.” 

He sighed as he said this, still looking far away at the 
winding river, with the same somber expression in his eyes. 
It was a face not easily forgotten by those who had once 
looked upon it, a face of remarkable beauty, a little wan 
and faded by the cares and dissipations of a career that had 
been far from perfect. Cyprian Davenant was not quite 
five-and- thirty, but he had lived at a high-pressure rate for 
ten years of his life, and bore the traces of the fray. The 
perfect profile, the broad low brow and deep dark eyes had 


WEAVERS AXD WEFT. 


7 


not lost much in losing the freshness of youth, but the pale 
cheeks were just a little sunken, and there were lines about 
those splendid eyes, and a rigid look about the resolute thin 
lips. If there was a fault to be found in the face it was 
perhaps the too prominent lower brow in which the per- 
ceptive organs were developed in an extreme degree, yet 
this very prominence gave character and individuality to 
the countenance. 

James Wyatt heard the regretful sigh, and noted the 
despondence of his companion's tone. 

I should have thought there were not many people in 
England you would care about leaving, Davenant,^^ he 
said, with a curious, watchful look at the other man’s half- 
averted face. ‘‘ I have heard you boast of standing alone 
in the world. ” 

“ Rather a barren boast, isn’t it?” said Sir Cyprian, 
with a brief and bitter laugh. “ Yes, I am quite alone. 
Since my sister Marian’s marriage, and complete absorption 
in nursery cares and nursery joys, there is no one to offer 
let or hinderance to my going yonder. I have friends, of 
course, a great many — such^s you, Jim, for instance; jolly 
good fellows, who would smoke a cigar with me to-night in 
thelDonds of friendship, and who would hear of my death a 
month hence without turning a hair. ” 

‘‘ Don’t talk platitudes about your friends, Cyprian. I 
have no doubt they are as good as other people’s. I don’t 
know a man going more popular than you are.” 

Cyprian Davenant took no notice of this remark. 

. ‘‘ Dear old river!” he murmured, tenderly. Poor old 
river, how many of the happiest hours of my life have been 
spent upon your banks, or on your breast! Shall I ever 
see. you again, I wonder, or shall I find a grave in the sand 
far away from the Thames and Medway? Don’t think me 
a sentimental old fool, Jim; but the fact is, I am a little 
out of spirits to-night. I ought not to have accepted Sin- 
clair’s invitation. I talked nineteen to the dozen at din- 
ner, and drank no end of hock and seltzer, but I felt as 
dreary as a ghost assisting at his own funeral. I suppose I 
am too old for this African business. I have outlived the 
explorer’s spirit, and have a foolish kind of presentiment 
that the thing will come to a bad end. Of course I 
wouldn’t own to such a feeling among the men who are 


8 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


going, but I may confess as much to you without being put 
down as a craven. 

“1^11 tell you what it is, Davenant,^’ answered the law- 
yer. “ There is something deeper than you have owned to 
yet at the bottom of your reluctance to leave England. 
There is some one, at least — a woman. 

The other turned his face full upon the speaker. “ You Ye 
about right, Jim,"'’ he said, tossing the end of his cigar 
away as he spoke. “ There is a woman — not a sudden 
caprice either — but a woman I have loved truly and fondly 
for the last five years of my life. If I were a wise man, I 
should be very glad of this chance of curing my infatuation 
by putting a few thousand miles between myself and the 
loveliest face I ever saw. 

‘‘ It"s a hojDeless case, then, I suppose,"" suggested James 
Wyatt. 

Quite hopeless. What have I to offer the woman I 
lover The income upon which I have managed to live 
since my ruin and subsequent reformation would be some- 
thing worse than beggary for a wife such as the woman I 
love. Even if she were willing to share my poverty, could 
I be mean enough to drag her into such a slough of 
despond? No, Jim, it is a hopeless case. My pretty one 
and I must part. I to dreary old bachelorhood, she to ful- 
fill her mission, and make one of the grand matches of the 
season. "" 

‘‘ I think I know the lady,"" said James Wyatt, slowly. 

Lord Clanyarde"s youngest daughter; the new one, eh, 
Cyprian r The Clanyardes are neighbors of yours in Kent, 
I know."" 

“ Of course I can trust you, Jim. Yes, you’ve hit it. 
But what made you fix upon Constance Clan 3 ’arde?"" 

“ Have not I senses to understand, and eyes to see, and 
have I not seen you and Miss Clanyarde together at least 
three times? Why, Cyprian, the infatuation on both sides 
is patent to the most unsophisticated observer. It’s a pity 
you’ve only four hundred a year. That would be rather a 
tight squeeze for a Clanyarde. They’re a notoriously ex- 
travagant set, I know, and have been up to their eyes in 
debt for the last forty years. Yes, I have seen the lady, 
Cyprian, and she is very lovely. Upon my word, I’m sorry 
for 3 ^ 0 u.” 

“ Thanks, old fellow. I needn’t ask you not to mention 


WEAVERS AIsD WEFT. 


9 


my name in conjunction with Miss Clanyarde^s. And now 
I suppose weM better go back to our friends. 

‘‘ I think so. By the way, what do you think of the lady 
we were asked to meet:’’ 

Mrs. Walsingham? She is very handsome. A widow, 
I suppose. ” 

^ “ She is rather silent on that point, and I have heard it 
hinted that Colonel Walsingham — he was colonel in the 
Spanish contingent, I believe, and Count of the Holy 
Roman Empire — still walks this earth, and that the lady 
owes her agreeable freedom to an American court of 
divorce. The antecedents are altogether doubtful, and 
Mrs. Walsingham ’s set is of the order fast and furious. 
Gilbert Sinclair likes that kind of thing.” 

“ And I suppose Mrs. Walsingham likes Gilbert Sin- 
clair. ” 

‘‘ Or his money. Sinclair’s about the biggest fish in the 
matrimonial waters, and she will be a happy angler who 
lands him. But I really believe Mrs. Walsingham has a 
weakness for the man himself, independent of his money. 
Strange, isn’t it? Sinclair’s the dearest fellow in the 
world, and as his friend of course I dote upon him; but I 
confess that if I were a woman I should regard him with 
unmitigated loathing. ” 

“ That’s rather strong.” 

“ Of course he’s a most estimable creature; but such an 
unspeakable snob, such a pompous, purse-proud cad. Ah, 
there he is at the window looking for us. If I were a 
woman, you know, Cyprian, that man would be the object 
of my aversion; but I’m not, and he’s my client, and it is 
the first duty of a solicitor to love his clients. Coming, 
Gilbert.” 

The two men crossed a little bit of lawn, and went in 
through the open window. The room was lighted with wax 
candles, and a merry party was crowded round a table, at 
one end of which a lady was dispensing tea in quite a 
home-like fashion. She was a very beautiful woman, of a 
showy type, dressed in white muslin half covered with lace, 
dressed just a shade too youthfully for her five-and-thirty 
years. There were two other ladies present, one a fashion- 
able actress, the other her friend and confidante, also an 
aspirant to dramatic fame. The first was occupied in an 
agreeable flirtation with a cornet of dragoons, the second 


10 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


was listening with delight to the lively conversation of Mr. 
Bellingham, manager of the Phoenix Theater. A couple 
of gentlemen belonging to the stock-broking fraternity, and 
Glibert Sinclair, the giver of the feast, made up the party. 

Mr. Bellingham had been entertaining the company with 
anecdotes of MacStinger, the great tragedian, the point of 
every story turning on the discomfiture of the great man 
by some blundering tyro in dramatic art. Mrs. Wal sing- 
ham had heard most of the stories a good many times be- 
fore, and she gave a palpable little yawn as Mr. Bellingham 
told her how the provincial Horatio informed the great 
Hamlet that his father’s ghost “ would have much amused 
you.” She covered the yawn with her pretty plump little 
hand, watched Gilbert Sinclair’s face with rather a troubled 
expression in her own, and in so doing was a little inattent- 
ive to the demand for more cups of tea. 

Mr. Sinclair was a man whom many people admired, 
and who was in no obvious manner deserving James Wyatt’s 
unflattering description. He affected a certain bluntness 
of style, which his friends accepted as evidence of a candid 
and open soul and a warm heart. He was generous to a 
lavish degree toward those he associated with and was sup- 
posed to like; but he was not liberal with protestations of 
regard, and he had few intimate acquaintances. He was a 
man whom some people called handsome — a big man, up- 
ward of six feet high, and with a ponderous, powerful 
frame. He had large regular features, a florid complexion, 
prominent reddish-brown eyes, thick curling hair of the 
same reddish-brown, and intensely white teeth. 

The chief claim which Mr. Sinclair possessed to notoriety 
was comprised in the fact of his wealth. He was the owner 
of a great estate in the north, an estate consisting of iron- 
works and coal-pits, the annual income from which was 
said to be something stupendous, and he had shares in more 
railways and mines and foreign loans than his friends could 
calculate. His father had been dead about five years, leav- 
ing Gilbert sole possessor of this great fortune, unfettered 
by a claim, for the young man was an only child, and had 
neither kith nor kin to share his wealth. He had been at 
Kugby and Cambridge, and had traveled all over Europe 
with a private tutor. He had seen everything, and had 
been taught everything that a wealthy young Englishman 
ought to see or to learn, and had profited in a very moder- 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


11 


ate degree by the process. He had a strong will and a 
great capacity for keeping his own secrets, and had started 
in life with the determination to enjoy existence after his 
own fashion. After three years spent in his companion- 
ship, his tutor remarked that he scarcely knew Gilbert Sin- 
clair any better at the close of their acquaintance than he 
had known him at the beginning of it. 

‘‘ And yet the fellow seems so candid,^’ said Mr. Ashon, 
wonderingly. 

“ I wish you would give me a little assistance with the 
tea-cups, Gilbert,^ ^ Mrs. AValsingham said, rather impa- 
tiently. ‘‘ It is all very well to talk of the pleasantness of 
having the tea made in the room in this way, but one re- 
quires some help. Thanks. Take that to Sir Cyprian 
Davenant, if you please, and bring me Sophy Morton’s 
cup.” 

Mr. Sinclair obeyed, and when he came back with the 
empty cup Mrs. Walsingham motioned him to a vacant 
chair by her side, and detained him there till the carriages 
were announced. She called him by his. Christian name in 
the face of society, and this party of to-night was only one of 
many entertainments that had been given at different times 
for her gratification. It was scarcely strange, therefore, if 
rumor, especially loud on the part of the lady’s friends, de- 
clared that Mr. Sinclair and Mrs. Walsingham were en- 
gaged to be married. But the acquaintance between them 
had ‘continued for a long time, and those who knew most 
of Gilbert Sinclair shook their heads significantly when the 
matrimonial question was mooted. 

^‘Gilbert knows his own value,” growled old Colonel 
Mordant, an inveterate whist- player and diner-out, who 
had introduced young Sinclair into fast society. ‘‘ When 
he marries he will marry well. A man with my friend Sin- 
clair’s fortune must have all the advantages in the lady of 
his choice — youth, beauty, rank — or at any rate position — 
and most men of that caliber look out for a corresponding 
amount of wealth. I don’t say Sinclair will do that. He 
is rich enough to indulge in a caprice. But as to marrying 
Clara Walsingham— a deuced fine woman, I grant you — 
ipas si 'bete !” 

Mrs. Walsingham detained Mr. Sinclair in conversation 
some time after the carriages had been announced. She 
was very bright and animated, and looked her best as she 


12 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


talked to him. It was nearly eleven o’clock when she was 
reminded of the lateness of the hour, and the length of the 
drive before them, by Miss Sophy Morton, who had lately 
transferred her attention from the callow cornet to Mr. 
Wyatt, much to the disgust of the youthful dragoon. 

“ Yes, Sophy, I am just going to put on my shawl. 
Will you fetch our wraps from the next room, please, Mr. 
Wyatt? Will you take the back seat in the brougham, 
Gilbert, and wind up with a lobster salad in Half -Moon 
Street? It is really early, you know.” 

Thanks, no. I could scarcely trust my man to drive 
those chestnuts; sol think I’ll go back in the phaeton; and 
I’m due at a hop in Eaton Square.” 

“ Indeed?” asked the lady, curiously, and with a rather 
anxious look. “ You used not to care for dancing parties.” 

“ I don’t care for them now; but one has to sacrifice im 
clination now and then, you know. ” 

“ Do I know the people?” asked Mrs. Walsingham. 

Mr. Sinclair smiled, as he replied, “ I think not.” 

A cloud came over the lady’s face, and when her shawl 
had been adjusted she took Gilbert Sinclair’s arm in silence. 
iNor did she speak to him on the way to the porch of the 
hotel, where a mail phaeton and a couple of broughams 
were waiting. Her adieus to the rest of the party were 
brief and cold, and Gilbert himself she only honored by a 
stately inclination of her beautiful head, with its coronal of 
bright chestnut hair, and coquettish little curls dotted 
about a broad white forehead. 

Mr. Sinclair stood bare-headed under the porch as the 
Walsingham brougham drove away, and then turned with 
a frown to perform his duties in other directions. Here, 
however, he found there was nothing left for him to do. 
Miss Morton and her companion had been escorted to their 
earriage by Sir Cyprian Davenant and Mr. Wyatt, and were 
waiting to bid their host good-bye. 

“And a thousand thanks for our delightful day, Mr. 
Sinclair, which we are not likely to forget for a long time, 
are wo, Imogen?” 

Miss Imogen Harlow, who had been born Watson and 
christened Mary Anne, shook her empty little head coquet- 
tishly, and declared that the memory of that Richmond 
dinner would remain with her to her dying day. And on 
the way home the two ladies discussed Mr. Sinclair and his 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


13 


income, and speculated as to the chances of his ultimately 
marrying Mrs. Walsingham. 


CHAPTER IL 
“when we two parted.^' 

Sir Cyprian Dayenant and James Wyatt went back 
to town by rail, and parted company at Waterloo, the 
baronet going westward to his bachelor lodgings in one of 
the shabbier streets about G-rosvenor Square, the lawyer to 
a big dull house on the coldest side of Russell Square, which 
his father had bought and furnished some fifty years before, 
and in which there was a large collection of old pictures, 
and a still larger collection of rare old wines stored away in 
great gloomy cellars with ponderous iron-plated doors. 
Mr. Wyatt the elder had done a good deal of business of a 
very profitable kind with the youthful members of the Brit- 
ish aristocracy, had raised loans for them at heavy rates of 
interest, never omitting to remind them of the sacrifice 
they made, and only yielding to the stern necessities of 
their position in a reluctant grudging spirit at the last; 
whereby the foolish young men were in no manner prevent- 
ed from rushing blindfold along the broad road to ruin, 
but were kept in ignorance of the fact that it was from 
Thomas Wyatt^s own coffers that the money came, and 
that to him the interest accrued. 

James Wyatt inherited his father’s cautious spirit, to- 
gether with his father’s handsome fortune, and he had cul- 
tivated very much the same kind of business, making him- 
self eminently useful to his young friends, and winning for 
himself the character of a most prudent friend and adviser. 
He did not take the risks of an ordinary money-lender, and 
he raised money for his clients on terms that seemed mod- 
erate when compared with the usurer’s exorbitant demands; 
but he contrived, nevertheless, to profit considerably by 
every transaction, and he never let a client escape him 
while there was a feather to pluck. 

Sir Cyprian Davenant had been in this gentleman’s 
hands ever since his coming of age, but now that there was 
not an acre of the Davenant estate unmortgaged, and the 
day was not far off in which must come foreclosure and 
sale, the relations between the two men were rather those 


14 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


of friendship than business. Cyprian had lived his life, 
had wasted his last available shilling, and had reformed. 
His dissipations had never been of a base or degrading 
order. He had been wild and reckless, had played high at 
his club, and lost money on the turf, and kept an extrava- 
gant stud, and ridden in steeple-chases at home and abroad, 
and had indulged in many other follies peculiar to his age 
and station; but he had no low vices, and when his money 
was gone, and the freshness of youth with it, he fell. from 
the ranks of his fast friends without a sigh. It was too late 
for him to think of a profession; and there seemed to be no 
brighter fate possible for him than the dreary monotony of 
old bachelorhood, on a limited income. 

“ I suppose I shall live to be an old fogy,"*^ he said, to 
himself. “ I shall have my particular' corner at the club, 
and be greedy about the newspapers, and bore the young- 
sters with my stupid old stories. What a life to look for- 
ward to!^’ 

Sir Cyprian had work to do after the Richmond dinner, 
and was occupied till long after daybreak with letter-writ- 
ing and the last details of his packing. When all was 
done, he was still wakeful, and sat by his writing-table in 
the morning sunlight thinking of the past and the future 
with a gloomy face. 

Thinking of the past — of all those careless hours in which 
one bright girlish face had been the chief influence of his 
life; thinking of the future in which he was to see that 
sweet face no more. 

‘‘How happy we have been together!^^ he thought, as 
he bent over a photograph framed in the lid of his dispatch- 
box, contemplated the lovely face with a fond smile, and a 
tender, dreaming look in his dark eyes. “ What long 
hours of boredom I have gone through in the way of even- 
ing parties in order to get a waltz with her, or a few min- 
utes of quiet talk in some balcony or conservatory, and all 
for the vain delight of loving her — without one ray of hope 
for the future, with the knowledge that I was doing her a 
great wrong in following her up so closely with my barren 
love! So even James Wyatt saw my infatuation; and hers, 
he said. Is there any truth in that last assertion, I won- 
der? Does Constance really care for me? I have never 
asked her the question, never betrayed myself by any direct 
avowal. Yet these things make themselves understood 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


15 


somehow, and I think my darling knows that I would die 
for her; and I think I know that she will never care for 
any man as she could care for me. 

He shut the dispatch-box, and began to walk slowly up 
and down the room, thinking. 

There would be just time for me to do it,^^ he said to 
himself, presently — “just time for me to run down to 
Davenant, and see the old place once more. It will be sold 
before I come back from Africa, if ever I do come back. 
And there would be the chance of seeing her. I know the 
Olanyardes have gone back to Kent. Yes, I will run 
down to Davenant for a few hours. A man must be hard 
indeed who does not care to give one farewell look at the 
house in which the brightest years of his life have been 
spent. And I may see her again, only to say good-bye, 
and to see if she is sorry for my going. What more can I 
say to her? What more need be said? She knows that I 
would lay down my life for her. 

He went to his room, and slept a kind of fitful sleep 
until eight o^clock, when he woke with a start, and began 
to dress for hiS journey. At nine he was driving through 
the streets in a hansom, and at midday he was in one of. 
the woody lanes leading across country from the little Kent- 
ish railway station to his own ancestral domain, the place 
he had once been proud and fond of, but which he looked 
at now in bitterness of spirit and with a passionate regret. 
The estate had been much encumbered when it fell into his 
hands, but he knew that, with prudence, he might have 
saved the greater part of it. He entered the park by a rus- 
tic gateway, beside which there was a keeper^s lodge, a 
gate dividing the thickest part of the wood from a broad 
green valley, where the fern grew deep under the spread- 
ing branches of grand old oa&, and around the smooth sil- 
ver-gray trunks of mighty beeches. The Davenant timber 
had suffered little from the prodigaTs destroying hand. 
He could better endure the loss of the place than its desecra- 
tion. The woman at the keeper’s lodge welcomed her 
master with an exclamation of surprise. 

“ I hope you have come to stay. Sir Cyprian,” she said, 
dropping a rustic courtesy. 

“ No, Mrs. Mead, I have only come for a last look at 
the old place before I go away from England.” 

“ Going away, sir? that’s bad news. ” 


IC 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


Cyprian cut short her lamentations with a friendly nod^ 
and was walking on, when it suddenly struck him that the- 
woman might be useful. 

“ Oh, by the way,^^ he said, “ Lord Glanyarde is at. 
Marchbrook, is he not?^^ 

“ Yes, sir; the family have been there for the last- 
week. 

Then 1^11 walk over there before I go on to the house, 
if youTl unlock the gate again, Mrs. Mead.’’^ 

“ Shall I send one of my boys to the house with a mes- 
sage, sir, about dinner, or anything?^’ 

“ You are very good. Yes, you can send the lad to tell 
old Mrs. Fomf ret to get me something to eat at six o’clock, 
if you please. I must get back to London by the 7:30 
train. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Deary me, sir, going back so soon as that?” 

The gates of Marchbrook were about a mile distant from 
the keeper’s lodge. Lord Clanyarde’s house was a dreary 
red brick habitation of the Georgian era, with long lines 
of narrow windows looking out upon a blank expanse of 
pasture land, by courtesy a park. An avenue of elms led 
from the lodge-gate to the southern front of the house, and 
on the western side there was a prim Dutch garden, divided 
from the park by a ha-ha. The place was in perfect order, 
but there was a cold, bare look about everything that was- 
eminently suggestive of poverty. 

A woman at the lodge informed Sir Cyprian that there 
was no one at home. Lord Clanyarde had driven to Maid- 
stone; Miss Clanyarde was in the village. She had gone 
to See the children at the National School. She would be^ 
home at two to lunch, no doubt, according to her usual 
habit. She was very fond of the school, and sometimes 
spent her morning in teaching the children. 

“ But they leave school at twelve, don’t they?” demand- 
ed Sir Cyprian. 

“ Yes, sir; but 1 dare say Miss Constance has stopped to 
talk to Miss Evans, the §chool-mistress. She is a very gen- 
teel young person, and quite a favorite with our ^adies.” 

Cyprian Davenant knew the little school-house and the 
road by which Constance Clanyarde must return from her 
mission. Nothing could be more pleasant to him than the 
idea of meeting her in her solitary walk. He turned away- 
from the lodge-keeper, muttering something vague about 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


IT 


calling again later, and walked at a rapid pace to the neigh- 
boring village, which consisted of two straggling rows of 
old-fashioned cottages fringing the skirts of a common. 
Close to the old ivy-covered church, with its massive square 
tower and grass-grown grave-yard, there was a modern 
Gothic building in which the village children struggled 
through the difficulties of an educational course, and from 
the open windows whereof their youthful voices rang loudly 
out upon the summer air every morning in a choral version 
of the multiplication table. 

Miss Clanyarde was standing in the little stone porch 
talking to the school- mistress wh&n Sir Cyprian opened tho 
low wooden gate. She looked up at the sound of his foot- 
step with a sudden blush. 

I did not know you were at Davenant, Sir Cyprian,^ ^ 
she said, with some little embarrassment, as they shook 
hands. 

“ I have not been at Davenant, Miss Clanyarde. I only 
left town this morning. I have come down here to say 
good-bye to Davenant and all old friends. 

The blush faded and left the lovely face very pale. 

“ Is it true that you are going to Africa, &r Cyprian? 
I heard from some friends in town that you were going to 
join Captain Harcourt^s expedition. 

It is quite true. I promised Harcourt some years ago 
that if he ever went again I would go with him.^^ 

‘‘ And you are pleased to go, I suppose?^’’ 

“ No, Miss Clanyarde, not pleased to go. But I think 
that sort of thing is about the best employment for the 
energies of a waif and stray, such as I am. I have lived 
my life, you see, and have not a single card left to play in 
the game of civilized existence. There is some hope of ad- 
venture out yonder. Are you going homer 

“Yes, I was just saying good-bye to Miss Evans as yon 
came in. 

“ Then ITl walk back to Marchbrook with you, if you'll 
allow me. I told the lodge-keeper I would return by and 
by in the hope of finding Lord Clanyarde. " 

“You have been to Marchbrook already, then?" 

“ Yes, and they told me at the lodge that I should find 
you here." 

After this there came rather an awkward silence. They 
walked away from the school-house side by side. Sir Cyprian 


18 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


furtively watchful of his companion's face, in which there 
were signs of a sorrow that seemed something deeper than 
the conventional regret which a fashionable beauty might 
express for the departure of a favorite waltzer. 

The silence was not broken until they had arrived at a 
point where two roads met, the turnpike road to March- 
brook, and a shady lane — a cross-country road, above 
which the overarching brandies of the elms made a roof of 
foliage at this bright midsummer season. There- was a 
way of reaching Marchbrook by this lane — a tempting walk 
compared to the high-road. 

Let us go back by the lane,’^ said Cyprian. It is a 
little longer, but I am sure you are not in a hurry. You 
would have dawdled away half the morning talking to that 
young woman at the school, if I hadn't come to fetch you; 
and it will be our last walk together, Constance. I may 
call you Constance, may I not, as I used when you were in 
the nursery? I am entitled to a few dismal privileges, like 
a dying man, you know. Oh, Constance, what happy 
hours we have spent together in these Kentish lanes! I shall 
see them in my dreams out yonder, and your face will 
shine down upon me from a background of green leaves 
and blue sky; and then I shall awake to find myself camp- 
ing out upon some stretch of barren sand, with jackals 
howling in the distance." 

“ What a dreadful picture!" said Constance, with a faint 
forced laugh. “ But if you are so reluctant to leave Eng- 
land, why do you persist in this African expedition?" 

“It is a point of honor with me to keep my promise; 
and it is better for me to be away from England. " 

“ You are the best judge of that question." 

Sir Cyprian was slow to reply to this remark. He had 
come down to Kent upon a sudden impulse, determined in 
no manner to betray his own folly, and bent only upon 
snatching the vain delight of a farewell interview with the 
girl he loved. But to be with her and not to tell her the 
truth was more difficult than he had imagined. He could 
see that she was sorry for his departure. He believed that 
she loved him, but he knew enough of Viscount Clanyarde's 
principles and his daughter's education to know there 
would be something worse than cruelty in asking this girl 
to share his broken fortunes. 

“ Yes, Constance," he went on, “ it is better for me to 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


19 

be away. So long as I am here it is the old story of the 
insect and the flame. I can not keep out of temptation. 
I can not keep myself from haunting the places where I 
am likely to meet the girl I love, fondly, foolishly, hope- 
lessly. Don^t look at me with those astonished eyes, my 
darling; you have known my secret ever so long. I meant 
to keep silence till the very end; but, you see, the words 
are spoken in spite of me. My love, I dare not ask you 
to be my wife. I dare only tell you that no other woman 
will fill that place. You are not angry with me, Con- 
stance, for having spoken?^"’ 

“ Angry with you — she began, and then broke down 
utterly and burst into tears. 

He drew his arm round her with a tender, protecting 
gesture, and soothed her gently, as if she had been a child. 

‘‘ My darling, I am not worth your tears. If I had been 
a better man, I might have redeemed Davenant by this 
time, and might have hoped to make you my wife. There 
would have been some hope for me, would there not, dear, 
if I could have offered you a home that your father could 
approve?^ ^ 

“ I am not so mercenary as you think me,^^ answered 
Constance, drying her tears, and disengaging herself from 
Sir Cyprian'^s encircling arm. “ I am not afraid of 
poverty. But I know that my father would never for- 
give — 

‘‘And I know it too, my dearest girl, and you shall not 
be asked to break with your father for such a man as 1. 

I never meant to speak of this, dear, but perhaps it is bet- 
ter that I should have spoken. You will soon forget me, 
Constance, and I shall hear of you making some brilliant 
marriage before I have been away very long. God grant 
the man may be worthy of you! God grant you may marry 
a good man 

“ I am not very likely to marry, replied Miss Clan- 
yarde. 

“ My dearest, it is not possible you can escape; and 
Heaven forbid that my memory should come between you 
and a happy future! It is enough for one of us to carry 
the burden of a life-long regret. 

There was much more talk between them before they 
arrived at a little gate opening into the Marchbrook 
kitchen-garden, fond, regretful talk of the days that were 


20 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


gone, in which they had been so much together down in 
Kent, with all the freedom permitted between friends and 
neighbors of long standing, the days before Constance had 
made her dehut in the great world. 

Sir Cyprian did not persevere in his talked-of visit to 
Lord Clanyarde. He had, in truth, very little desire to 
see that gentleman, who was one of the most pompous and 
self-opinionated of noblemen. At the little garden gate he 
grasped' Miss Clanyarde^s two hands in his own vvith one 
fond, fervent grasp. 

“ You know the old story,^^ he said: ‘ it must be for 
years, and it may be forever.^ It is an eternal parting for 
me, darling, for I can never hope to call you by that sweet 
name again. You have been very good to me in letting 
me speak so freely to-day, and it is a kind of consolation 
to have told you my sorrow. God bless you, and good- 
bye 

This was their parting. Sir Cyprian went back to 
Havenant, and spent a dreary hour in walking up and 
down the corridor and looking into the empty rooms. He 
remembered them tenanted with the loved and lost. How 
dreary they were now in their blank and unoccupied state, 
and how little likelihood there was that he should ever see 
them again! His dinner was served for him in a pretty 
breakfast-room, with a bay-window overlooking a garden 
that had been his mother’s delight, and where the roses 
she had loved still blossomed in all their glory. The 
memory of the dead was with him as he eat his solitary 
meal, and he was glad when it was time for him to leave 
the great desolate house, in which every door closed with a 
dismal reverberation, as if it had been shutting upon a 
vault. 

He left Davenant immediately after dinner, and walked 
back to the little station, thinking mournfully enough of 
his day’s work and of the life that lay before him. Before 
noon next day he and his companions were on the first 
stage of their journey, speeding toward Marseilles. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


21 


CHAPTER III. 

WAS THINE OATH THAT FIRST DID FAIL.^^ 

Nearly a year had gone since Cyprian Davenanfc turned 
his back upon British soil. It was the end of May, high 
season in London, and unusually brilliant weather, the 
West End streets and squares thronged with carriages, and 
everywhere throughout that bright western world a delight- 
ful flutter and buzz of life and gayety, as if the children of 
that pleasant region had indeed in some manner secured 
an exemption from the cares and sorrows of meaner mor- 
tals, and were bent on making the most of their privileged 
existence. 

. A neatly appointed brougham waited before the door of 
R, house in Half-Moon Street, and had been waiting there 
for some time. It was Mrs. Walsingham’s brougham, and 
the lady herself was slowly pacing to and fro her little 
drawing-room, pausing every now and then to look out of 
the window, and in a very unpleasant state of mind. She 
was elegantly dressed in her favorite toilet of India muslin 
and lace, and was looking very handsome, in spite of the 
cloud upon her smooth white brow, and a certain ominous 
flitter in her blue eyes. 

‘‘ I suppose he is not coming,’^ she muttered at last, toss- 
ing her white lace parasol upon the table with an angry 
gesture. “ This will be the second disappointment in a 
week. But I shall not go to the concert without him. 
What do I care for their tiresome classical music, or to be 
stared at by a crowd of great ladies who donT choose to 
know mer^^ 

She rang the bell violently, but before it could be an- 
swered there came a thundering double knock at the door 
below, and a minute afterward Gilbert Sinclair dashed into 
the room, bearing in his hand a beautiful bouquet of the 
rarest and most fragrant flowers. 

Late again, Gilbert,^’ cried Mrs. Walsingham, re- 
proachfully, her face brightening nevertheless at his com- 
ing; and she smiled at him with a pleased welcoming smile 
as they shook hands. 

“Yes, I know iPs late for that confounded Concert. 


22 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


But I want you to let me off that infliction, Clara. That 
sort of thing is such a consummate bore to a man who 
doesn’t know the difference between Balfe and Beethoven, 
and you know I have a heap of engagements on my 
hands. ” 

“ You have only come to cry off, then?” said Mrs. 
Walsingham, with a sudden contraction of her firmly 
molded lips. 

“ My dear Clara, what a fiend you can look when you 
like! But I wouldn’t cultivate that kind of expression if I 
were you. Of course, ITl go to the concert with you, if 
you are bent upon it rather than run the risk of anything in 
the way of a scene. But you know very well that I don’t 
care for music, and you ought to know — ” 

He stopped, hesitating, with a furtive look in his red- 
brown eyes, and a nervous action of one big hand about his 
thick brown mustache. 

‘‘ I ought to know what, Mr. Sinclair?” asked Clara 
Walsingham, with a sudden hardness of voice and manner. 

“ That it is good neither for your reputation nor mine 
that we should be seen so often together at such places as 
this Portman Square concert. It is almost a private affair, 
you know, and everybody present will know all about us. 

‘ ‘ Indeed I and since when has Mr. Gilbert Sinclair be- 
come so careful of his reputation — or of mine?” 

“ Since you set your friends talking about our being en- 
gaged to be married, Mrs. Walsingham. You have rather 
too many feminine acquaintances with long tongues. I 
don’t like being congratulated, or chaffed — ^it comes to 
pretty much the same thing — upon an event which you 
know can never happen.” 

“ Never is a long word, Gilbert. My husband may die, 
and leave me free to become your wife, if you should do 
me the honor to repeat the proposal which you made to me 
six years ago.” 

“I don’t like waiting for dead men’s shoes, Clara, 
answered Sinclair, in rather a sulky tone. ‘‘ I made you 
that offer in all good faith, when I believed you to be a 
widow, and when I was madly in love with you. But six 
years is a long time, and — ” 

He broke down again, and stood before her with his eyes 
fixed on the ground. 

“And men. are fickle,” she said, taking up his un- 


WEAVERS AXD WEFT. 


2S 


finished sentence. “ You have grown tired of me, Gilbert; 
is that what you mean?’^ 

Not exactly that, Clara, but rather tired of a position 
that keeps me a single man without a single man^s liberty. 
You are quite as exacting as a wife, more jealous than a 
mistress, and I am getting to an age now at which a man 
begins to feel a kind of yearning for something more like a 
home than chambers in the Albany, some one more like a 
wife than a lady who requires one to be perpetually play- 
ing the cavaliere servente.’^ 

Have I been exacting, Gilbert. 1 did not know that. 
I have tried my uttermost to make my house agreeable to 
you. Believe me, I care less for gayety than you imagine. 
I should be satisfied with a very dull life if I saw you often. 
Oh, Gilbert, I think you ought to know how well I love 
you!^^ 

‘‘ I could better have believed that six years ago, if you 
had consented to leave England with me, as I proposed 
when I found out the secret of Mr. Walsingham^s existence, 
and that the Yankee divorce was all bosh.'^' 

‘‘ I loved you too well to sink as low as that, Gilbert. 

“ I thought the strength of a woman'^s love was best 
shown by her sacrifice of self. You preferred your reputa- 
tion to my happiness, and have kept me dangling on ever 
since, for the gratification of your vanity, I suppose. It 
would have been more generous to have dismissed me, and 
made an end of the farce at once. 

“ You were not so willing to be dismissed until very 
lately, Gilbert. Why have you grown so tired of me, all 
of a sudden?’^ 

“ I tell you again it is the position I am tired of, not you. 
If you were free to marry me it would be a different thing, 
of course. As it is, we are both wasting our lives and get- 
ting ourselves talked about into the bargain. 

Clara Walsingham laughed scornfully at this. 

“ I care very little what people say of me,^^ she said. 
‘‘ English society has not chosen to receive me very gra- 
ciously, and I did not think you would consider yourself 
injured by having your name linked with mine.^^ 

But, you see, Clara, it does a man harm to have it said 
he is engaged to a woman he never can marry. It does him 
some kind of harm in certain circles. 

“ How vague you are, Gilbert, and how mysterious! 


24 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


‘ Some kind of harm in certain circles. What does that 
mean?^^ 

She stood for a minute looking at him, with a sudden 
intensity in her face. He kept his eyes on the ground 
during that sharp scrutiny, but he was fully conscious of it 
nevertheless. . 

“ Gilbert Sinclair,^ ^ she cried, after a long pause, “ you 
are in love with some other woman; you are going to jilt 
me. 

There was a suppressed agony in her tone which both 
surprised and alarmed the man to whom she spoke. Of 
late he had doubted the sincerity of her attachment to him, 
and had fostered that doubt, telling himself that it was his 
wealth she cared for. 

“ Would it grieve you very much if I were to marry, 
Clara?^^ he asked. 

“ Grieve me if you were to marry! It would be the end 
of my life. I would never forgive you. But you are play- 
ing with me. You are only trying to frighten me.^^ 

‘‘ You are frightening youreslf,^^ he answered. I only 
put the question in a speculative way. Let us drop the 
subject. If you want to go to the concert — 

“ I donT want to go; I am not fit to go anywhere^ 
Will you ring that bell, please? I shall send the brougham 
back to the stable. 

‘‘ WonT you drive in the park this fine afternoon?’^ 

“ No; I am fit for nothing now.^^ 

A maid-servant came in answer to the bell. 

‘‘ You can take my bonnet, Jane,” said Mrs. Walsing- 
ham, removing that floral structure, ‘‘ and tell Johnson I 
shall not want the brougham to-day. You^ll stop to din- 
ner, wonT you, Gilbert?” she went on when the maid had 
retired. ‘‘ Mr. Wyatt is to be here, and Sophy Morton. ” 

“ How fond you are of those actor people! So Jim 
Wyatt is coming, is he? I rather want to see him. But I 
have other engagements this afternoon, and I really donT 
think I can stay.” 

“ Oh yes, you can, Gilbert. I shall think I had just 
grounds for my suspicion if you are so eager to run away. ” 

“Very well, Clara, if you make a point of it, I will 
stop.” 

Mr. Sinclair threw himself into one of the low luxurious 
chairs with an air of resignation scarcely complimentary ta 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


25 


Ills hostess. Time was when this woman had exercised a 
profound power ov^er him, when he had been indeed eager 
to make her his wife; but that time was past and gone. He 
was tired of an alliance which demanded from him so much 
more than it was in his selfish nature to give; and he was 
inclined to be angry with himself for having wasted so much 
of his life upon an infatuation which he now accounted the 
one supreme mistake of his career. Before his charmed 
eyes there had appeared a vision of womanly loveliness com- 
pared with which Clara Walsingham^s beauty seemed of the 
earth earthy. He could not deny that she was beautiful, 
but in that other girlish face there was a magic which he 
had never before encountered, a glamor that enthralled his 
narrow soul. 

The interval before dinner dragged wearily, in spite of 
Mrs. Walsingham^s efforts to sustain a pleasant conversa- 
tion about trifles. Gilbert was not to be beguiled into ani- 
mated discussion upon any subject whatever. It seemed 
;as if the two were treading cautiously upon the very verge 
of some conversational abyss, some dangerous chasm, into 
whose deadly depths they might at any moment descend 
with a sudden plunge. 

Mrs. Walsingham questioned her companion about his 
■plans for the end of the season. 

Shall you go to Norway for the salmon fishing?’^ she 
asked. 

I think not. I am tired of that part of the world. 

“ Then I suppose you will amuse yourself with the 
grouse in Scotland?^^ 

‘‘ No, I have just declined a share in a moor. I am 
heartily sick of grouse shooting. I have really no settled 
plans as yet. I shall contrive to get rid of the autumn 
somehow, no doubt. 

The conversation dawdled on in this languid manner for 
a couple of hours, and then Mr. Sinclair went away to 
•change his dress for the regulation dinner costume. 

The smile which Mrs. Walsingham '’s face had worn while 
she talked to him faded the moment he had left her, and 
she began to pace the room with rapid steps and a darkly 
-clouded brow. 

‘‘ Yes, there is no doubt of it,^^ she muttered to herself, 
with suppressed passion. ‘‘ I have seen the change in him 
for the last twelve months. There is some one else. How 


26 


WEAVERS A2sD WEFT. 


should I lose him if it were not so? Heaven knows what 
pains I have taken to retain my hold upon him ! There is 
some one else. He is afraid to tell me the truth. He is 
wise in that respect. Who can the woman be for whom I 
am to be forsaken? He knows so many people, and visits 
so much, and is everywhere courted and flattered on ac- 
count of his money. Oh, Gilbert, fool, fool! Will any 
woman ever love you as I have loved you, for yotir own 
sake, without a thought of your fortune, with a blind idol- 
atry of your very faults? What is it that I love in him, I 
wonder? I know that he is not a good man. I have seen 
his heartlessness too often of late not to know that he is 
hard and cruel and remorseless toward those who come be- 
tween him and his iron will. But I too could be hard and 
remorseless if a great wrong were done, me. Yes, even to 
him. Let him take care how he provokes a passionate, 
reckless nature like mine. Let him beware of playing with 
fire.'’^ 

This was the gist of her thoughts during a gloomy reverie 
that lasted more than an hour. At the end of that time 
Miss Morton was announced, and came fluttering into the 
room, resplendent in a brilliant costume of rose-colored silk 
and black lace, followed shortly by James W^^att, the law- 
yer, courteous and debonair, full of small-talk and fashion- 
able scandal. Gilbert Sinclair was the last to enter. 

The dinner was elegantly served in a pretty little dining- 
room, hung with pale green draperies and adorned with a 
few clever water-color pictures, a room in which there was 
a delightful air of coolness and repose. The folding-doors 
between the two rooms on the ground-floor had been re- 
moved, and the back-room was covered with a cool Indian 
matting, and converted into a kind of conservatory for large 
ferns and orange-trees, the dark foliage whereof made an 
agreeable background to the fresh brightness of the pollard 
oak furniture in the dining-room. There was no profuse 
show of plate upon the round table, but the wine flasks and 
tall -stemmed glasses were old Venetian of the costliest kind 
and the dessert service was Wedgwood. 

Mr. Wyatt was invaluable in the task of sustaining the 
conversation, and Clara Walsingham seconded him ad- 
mirably, though there was a sharp anguish at her heart 
that was now almost a habitual pain, an agony prophetic 
of a coming blow. Gilbert Sinclair was a little brighter 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


27 


than he had been in the afternoon, -«nd contributed his 
share to the talk with a decent grace, only once or twice 
betraying absence of mind by a random answer and a wan- 
dering look in his big brown eyes. 

James Wyatt and Mrs. Walsingham had been running 
through a catalogue of the changes of fortune, for good or 
«vil, that had befallen their common acquaintances, when 
Gilbert broke in upon their talk suddenly with the ques- 
tion, 

‘‘ What has become of that fellow who dined with us at 
Kichmond last year? Sir Cyprian something.’^ 

“ Sir Cyprian Davenant,'^ said James Wyatt. “ He is 
still in Africa. 

“ In Africa! Ah, yes, to be sure, I remember hearing 
that he was going to join Harcourt’s expedition. I was not 
much impressed by him, though I had heard him talked 
about as something out of the common way. He had 
precious little to say for himself. 

“ You saw him at a disadvantage that day. He was out 
of spirits at leaving England. 

“ Very likely, but I had met him in society very often 
before. He’s rather a handsome fellow, no doubt; but I 
certainly couldn’t discover any special merit in him beyond 
his good looks. He’s a near neighbor of the Clanyardes, 
by the way, when he’s at home, is he not?” 

‘‘When he’s at home, yes,” answered the solicitor. 

But I doubt if ever he’ll go home again. ” 

“ You mean that he’ll come by his death in Africa, I 
suppose?” 

I sincerely hope not, for Cyprian Davenant is one of 
my oldest friends. No; I mean that he’s not very likely 
to see the inside of his ancestral halls any more. The place 
is to be sold this year. ” 

The baronet is quite cleared out, then?” 

“ He has about four hundred a year that he inherited 
from his mother, so tightly tied up that he has not been 
able to make away with it. ” 

“ What Clanyardes are those?” asked Mrs. Walsingham. 

“ Viscount Clanyarde and his family. They have a place 
called Marchbrook, and a very poor place it is, within a 
mile or two of Davenant. The old viscount is as poor as 
Job.” 

“ Indeed! But his youngest daughter will make a great 


28 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


match, no doubt, and redeem the fortunes of the house. I 
saw her at the opera the other night. She was pointed out. 
to me as the loveliest girl in London, and I really think 
she has a right to be called so. What do you think of her,- 
Gilbert?'^ 

She fixed her eyes upon Sinclair with a sudden scrutiny 
that took him off his guard. A dusky flush cam6 over hi» 
face, and he hesitated awkwardly before replying to her 
very simple question. 

Clara Walsingham’s heart gave a great throb. 

‘‘ That is the woman, she said to herself. 

“ Miss Clanyarde is very handsome, stammered Gilbert;. 
‘‘ at least I believe that is the general opinion about her. 
She has been intimate with your friend Davenant ever since 
she was a child, hasn’t she, Wyatt?” he asked, with an in- 
difference of tone which one listener knew to be assumed. 

“ Yes, I have heard him say as much,” the other an- 
swered, with an air of reserve which implied the possession 
of more knowledge upon this point than he cared to im- 
part. 

“ Those acquaintances of the nursery are apt to end in 
something more than friendship,” said Mrs. Walsingham. 
“ Is there any engagement between Sir Cyprian and Miss 
Clanyarde?” 

‘‘ Decidedly not.” 

Gilbert Sinclair burst into a harsh laugh. 

“Not very likely,” he exclaimed. “ I should like to see 
old Clanyarde ’s face if his daughter talked of marrying a 
gentlemanly pauper.” 

“ That is the woman he loves,” Mrs. Walsingham re- 
peated to herself. 

No more was said about Sir Cyprian or the Clauyardes.- 
The conversation drifted into other channels, and the even- 
ing wore itself away more or less pleasantly, with the assist- 
ance of music by and by in the drawing-room, where there 
were a few agreeable droppers-in. Mrs. Walsingham played 
brilliantly, and possessed a fine mezzo-soprano voice, that 
had been cultivated to an extreme degree. There were 
those who said she had been an opera singer before her 
marriage with that notorious roue and reprobate, Clarence 
Vernon Walsingham. But this was not true. Clara 
Walsingham’s musical powers had never been exercised 
professionally. She had a real love of music for its owrt 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


29 


sake, and found a consolation for many desolate hours in 
the companionship of her piano. 


CHAPTER IV. 

‘‘ OFFEND HER AND SHE KNOWS NOT TO FORGIVE. 

Three days after the little dinner in Half-Moon Street, 
Mrs. Walsingham sat at her solitary breakfast-table rather 
later than usual, dawdling over the morning papers, and 
wondering drearily what she should do with the summer 
day before her. She had seen nothing of Gilbert Sinclair 
since the dinner, and had endured an agony of self-torment 
in the interval. His name appeared in one of the morning 
journals among the guests at a distinguished countesses ball 
on the previous evening, and in the list of names above Mr. 
Sinclair's she found those of Lord Clanyarde and his daugh- 
ter. There had been a time when Gilbert set his face 
against all fashionable entertainments, voting them the 
abomination of desolation. He had changed of late, and 
went everywhere, raising fond hopes in the breasts . of 
anxious mothers with large broods of marriageable daugh- 
ters waiting for their promotion. 

Mrs. Walsingham sat for some time looking vacantly at 
the long list of names, and thinking of the man she loved. 
Yes, she loved him. She knew his nature by heart; knew 
how nearly that obstinate, selfish nature verged upon 
brutality, and loved him nevertheless. Something in the 
force of his character exercised a charm over her own im- 
perfect disposition. She had believed in the strength of his 
affection for herself, which had been shown in a passionate, 
undisciplined kind of manner that blinded her to the shal- 
lowness of the sentiment. She had been' intensely proud 
of her power over this rough Hercules, all the more proud 
of his subjugation because of that half -hidden brutishness 
which she had long ago divined in him. She liked him for 
what he was, and scarcely wished him to be better than he 
was. She only wanted him to be true to her. WTien he 
had asked her, years ago, to be his wife, she had frankly 
told him the story of her youth and marriage. Her hus- 
band was five-and- twenty years her senior, a man with a 
constitution broken by nearly half a century of hard living, 
and she looked forward hopefully to a speedy release from 


30 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


a union that had long been hateful to her. She had be- 
lieved that it would be possible to' retain Gilbert's affection 
until the time when that release should come without sacri- 
fice of her reputation. Had she not believed and hoped this, - 
it is impossible to say what guilty sacrifice she might have 
been willing to make rather than lose the man she loved. 
She had hoped to keep him dangling on, governed by her 
womanly tact, a faithful slave, until the colonel, who led a 
stormy kind of existence about the Continent, haunting 
German gaming-tables, should be good enough to depart 
this life. But the colonel was a long time exhausting his 
battered constitution, and the flowery chain in which Mrs. 
Walsingham held her captive had faded considerably with 
the passage of years. 

A loud double knock startled the lady from her reverie. 
Who could such an early visitor be? Gilbert himself, per- 
haps. He had one of those exceptional constitutions to 
which fatigue is a stranger, and would be no later astir 
to-day for last night^s ball. Her heart fluttered hopefully, 
but sunk again with the familiar anguish of disappointment 
as the door was opened and a low, deferential voice made 
itself heard in the hall. Those courteous tones did not be- 
long to Gilbert Sinclair. 

A card was brought to her presently, with James 
Wyatt^s name upon it, and “ on special business, with 
many apologies,"^ written in pencil below the name, in the 
solicitor’s neat hand. 

“ Shall I show the gentleman to the drawing-room, 
ma’am, or will you see him here?” asked the servant. 

“ Ask him to come in here. What special business can 
Mr. Wyatt have with me?” she wondered. 

The solicitor came into the room as she asked herself this 
question, looking very fresh and bright, in his careful 
morning costume, with a hot-house flower in the button- 
hole of his perfectly fitting coat. He was more careful of 
his toilet than many handsomer men, and knew how far the 
elegance of his figure and the perfection of his dress went 
to atone for his plain face. 

“ My dear Mrs. Walsingham,” he began, “ I owe you a 
thousand apologies for this unseasonable intrusion. If I 
did not think the nature of my business would excuse — ” 

“ There is nothing to be excused. You find me guilty 
of a very late breakfast, that is all. Why should you not 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


31 


call at half -past ten as well as at half-past two? It is very 
kind of you to come at all.'’" 

There was a tone of indifference in all this politeness, a 
half- weary tone, which did not fail to strike James Wyatt. 
He had made this woman a study during the last year, and 
he knew every note of her voice, every expression of her 
face. 

‘‘ I hold it one of my dearest privileges to be received by 
you,"" he replied, with a certain grave tenderness. There 
are some men who do not know when they are happy, Mrs. 
Vfalsingham. I am not one of those."" 

She looked at him with a surprise that was half scornful. 

‘‘ Pray spare me the pretty speeches which make you so 
popular with other women,"" she said. You spoke of 
business just now. Did you really mean business?"" 

“ Not in a legal sense. My errand this morning is of 
rather a delicate nature. I would not for the world distress 
or offend you by any unwarranted allusion to your domestic 
relations, but I believe I am the bearer of news which can 
scarcely have reached you yet by any other channel, and 
which may not be altogether unwelcome."" 

‘‘ What news can you possibly bring me?"" she asked, 
with a startled look. 

“ Would it distress you to hear that Colonel Walsing- 
ham is ill — dangerously ill, even?"" 

Her breath came quicker as he spoke. 

‘‘ I am not hypocrite enough to pretend that,"" she an- 
swered. My heart has long been dead to any feeling but 
anger — I will not say hatred, though he has deserved as 
much — where that man is concerned. I have suffered too 
much by my alliance with him."" 

Then let me be the first to congratulate you upon your 
release from bondage. Your husband is dead."" 

Clara Walsingham"s cheek blanched, and she was silent 
for some moments; and then she asked, in a steady voice, 
‘‘ How did you come by the news of his death?"" 

“ In the simplest and most natural manner. My busi- 
ness requires me to be au courant as to Continental affairs, 
and I get several French and German newspapers. In one 
of the last I found the account of a duel, succeeding upon a 
quarrel at the gaming table, in which your husband fell, 
shot through the lungs. He only survived a few hours. 


3:3 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


His opponent was a Frenchman, and is now under arrestc 
Shall I read you the paragraph?” 

“ If you please, answered Mrs. Walsingham, with per- 
fect calmness of manner. Her heart was beating tumultu- 
ously, nevertheless. She had a dismal conviction that no 
, advantage — that is to say, not that one advantage for which 
she longed — would come to her from her husband’s death. 
How eagerly she had desired his death once! Torday the 
news gave her little satisfaction. 

Mr. Wyatt took a slip of newspaper from his card-case, 
and read her the brief account of the colonel’s exit from 
this mortal strife. Duels were common enough in Prussia, 
and the journal made very little of the sanguinary business. 

As many of my friends believe me to have been left a 
widow long ago, I shall make no fuss about this event; and 
I shall be very grateful if you will be good enough not to 
talk of it anywhere,” Mrs. Walsingham said, by and by, 
after a thoughtful pause. 

“ I shall be careful to obey you,” answered the lawyer. 

“ I wonder how you came to guess that I was not a widow, 
and that Colonel Walsingham was my husband. He took 
me abroad directly after our marriage, and we were never 
in England together. ” 

“ It is a solicitor’s business to know a great many things, 
and in this case there was a strong personal interest. You 
accused me just now of flattering women; and it is quite 
true that I have now and then amused myself a little with 
the weaker of your sex. Until about a year ago I believed 
myself incapable of any real feeling — of any strong attach- 
ment — and had made up my mind to a life of solitude, re- 
lieved by the frivolities of society. But at that time a 
great change came over me, and I found that I too was 
doomed to suffer life’s great fever. In a word, I fell des- 
perately in love. I think you can guess the rest.” 

“lam not very good at guessing, but I suppose the lady 
is some friend of mine, or you would scarcely choose me for 
a confidante. Is it Sophy Morton? I know you admire 
her. ” 

“ As I admire wax dolls, or the Haidees and Zuleikas of 
an illustrated Byron,” answered Mr. Wyatt, with a wry 
face. “ Sophy Morton would have about as much power to 
touch my heart or influence my mind as the wax dolls or 
the Byronic beauties. There is only one woman I have 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 33 

evei* loved, or ever can love, and her name is Clara 
Walsingham.’^ 

Mrs. Walsingham looked at him with unaffected surprise. 

Of course I ought to feel very much flattered by such a 
declaration on your part, Mr. Wyatt, if I could quite bring 
myself to believe in your sincerity. 

“ Put me to the proof."’ 

I can not do that. I can only thank you for the honor 
you have done me, and regret that-you should endanger the 
smooth course of our friendship by that kind of declaration. 
I have learned to rely upon you as a friend and an adviser, 
a thorough man of the world, and the last of mankind to 
lapse into sentimentality. ” 

‘‘There is no sentimentality in the business, Mrs. 
W alsingham. I offer you a real and devoted affection, such 
an affection as a man feels but once in his life, and which 
a woman should scarcely reject without a thought of its 
value. I know I must seem at a disadvantage among the 
men who surround you, but they are men of the butterfly 
species, and I believe the best of them to be incapable of 
feeling as I feel for you. Yes, you are right when you call 
me a man of the world. It is to such men that love comes 
with its fullest force when it comes at all. I have not 
yielded weakly to the great master of mankind. I have 
counted the cost, and I know the devotion which I offer 
you to-day is as unalterable as it is profound.” 

“lam sorry that I should have inspired any such senti- 
ment, Mr. Wyatt I can never return it ” 

Is that your irrevocable reply?” 

“ It is,” she answered, decisively. 

“You reject the substance — an honest man’s devoted 
love — and yet you are content to waste the best years of 
your life upon a shadow. ” 

“ I don’t understand you.” 

“ Oh yes, I think you do. I think you know as well as 
I do how frail a reed you have to lean on when you put 
your trust in Gilbert iSinclair.” 

■“ You have no right to speak about Mr. Sinclair,” an- 
swered Clara Walsingham, with an indignant flush. 
“ What do you know of him, or of my feelings in relation 
to'him?” 

“ I know that you love him. Yes, Clara, it is the busi- 
ness of a friend to speak plainly; and even at the hazard 


34 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


of incurring your anger, I will do so. Gilbert Sinclair is 
not worthy of your affection. You will know that I am. 
right before long if you do not know it now. It is not in 
that man^s nature to be constant under difficulties, as I 
would be constant to you. Your hold upon him has been 
growing weaker every year.^^ 

‘‘ If that is true, I shall discover the fact quite soon 
enough from the gentleman himself,*’^ replied Mrs. Wal- 
singham, in a hard voice, and with an angry cloud upon 
her face. “ Your friendship, as you call it, is not required 
to enlighten me upon a subject which scarcely comes with- 
in the province of a solicitor. Y^es, Mr. Wyatt, since plain 
speaking is to be the order of the day; I am weak enough 
and blind enough to care for Gilbert Sinclair better than 
for any one else upon this earth, and if I do not marry 
him, I shall never marry at all. He may intend to jilt 
me. Yes, I have seen the change in him. It would be a 
vain falsehood if I denied that. I have seen the change, 
and I am waiting for the inevitable day in which the man 
I once believed in shall declare himself a traitor.’^ 

‘‘ Would it not be wise to take the initiative, and give 
him his dismissal?’^ 

“No. The wrong shall come from him. If he can be 
base enough to forget all the promises of the past, and to 
ignore the sacrifices I have made for him, his infamy shall 
have no excuse from any folly of mine.^^ 

“And if you find that he is false to you — that he has 
transferred his affection to another woman — you will ban- 
ish him from your heart and mind, I trust, and begin life 
afresh. ” 

Mrs. Walsingham laughed aloud. 

“ Yes, I shall begin a new life; for from that hour I shall 
only live upon one hope.^^ 

“ And that will be — 

“ The hope of revenge. 

“ My dear Mrs. Walsingham remonstrated the law- 
yer. 

“ That sounds melodramatic, does it not? But, you see, 
there is a strong mixture of the melodramatic element in 
real life. Gilbert Sinclair should know that I am not a 
woman to be jilted with impunity. Of course I donT mean 
that I should poison him or stab him. That sort of thing 
is un-English and obsolete, except among the laboring 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


35 


classes, who have a rapid way of taking payment for the 
wrongs that are done them. No, I should not kill him ; 
but rely upon it, I should make his life miserable. 

Mr. Wyatt watched her face with a thoughtful expression 
in his own. Yes, she looked the kind of woman whose 
anger would take some tangible and perhaps fatal form. 
She was not a woman to carry the burden of a broken 
heart in silent patience to the grave. 

Upon my life, I should be afraid to offend her,^^ 
thought James Wyatt. 

“ Kevenge is a bad word,^^ he said, after another long 
pause. “ Redress is much better. If Mr. Sinclair should 
marry, as I have some reason to think he will — 

‘‘ What reason?’^ 

“ Public rumor. His attentions to a certain young lady 
have been remarked by people I know. 

“ The lady is the beautiful Miss Clanyarde. ” 

“ How did you discover that?^’ 

‘‘ From his face the other night. 

“ You are quick at reading his face. Yes, I believe he 
is over head and ears in love with Constance Clanyarde, as 
a much better man, Cyprian Uavenant, was before him; 
and I have no doubt Lord Clanyarde will do his utmost to 
bring the match about. 

“ How long has this been going on?^^ 

Since the beginning of this season. He may have lost 
his heart to the lady last year, but his attentions last year 
were not so obvious. 

“ Do you know if Miss Clanyarde cares for him?^' 

I have no means of knowing the lady^s feeling on the 
subject, but I have a considerable knowledge of her father 
in the way of business; and I am convinced she will be 
made — induced is, I suppose, a more appropriate word — to 
accept Sinclair as a husband. Lord Clanyarde is as poor as 
Job and as proud as Lucifer. Yes, I think we may look 
upon the marriage as a certainty. And now, Mrs. Walsing- 
ham, remember that by whatever means you seek redress I 
am your friend, and shall hold myself ready to aid and abet 
you in the exaction of your just right. You have rejected 
me as a husband. You shall discover how faithful I can 
be as an ally. 

“ I doiiT quite understand the nature of the alliance you 
propose. Do you mean you will help me to come between 


36 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


that man and all hope of domestic happiness? You do nofc 
know how merciless I could be if chance gave me the power 
to punish Gilbert Sinclair's infidelity." 

“I know that he will deserve little compassion front 
you." 

“ But from you? He has never injured you. " 

“ Do not be so sure of that. There are petty insults and 
trivial injuries that make up the sum of a great wrong. 
Gilbert Sinclair has not treated me well. 1 will not trouble 
you with the dry details of our business relations, but I 
have sufficient reasons for resentment without reference to 
you. And now I will intrude upon you no longer. I see 
you are a little tired of this conversation. I only entreat 
you once more to remember that I am your friend.'^ 

Mrs. Walsingham looked at him with a doubtful expres- 
sion. He had subjugated her pride completely by the 
boldness of his attack. At another time she might have 
been angry with liim, but the weariness of her spirit, the 
dull sense of impending sorrow, were more powerful than 
anger. She only felt humiliated and perplexed by James 
Wyatt's proffers of love and friendship, uncertain how far 
he had been sincere in either offer. 

‘‘ I have no doubt I ought to be grateful to you, Mr. 
Wyatt," she said, in a slow, weary way, ‘‘ but I do nob 
think your friendship can ever be of much service to me in 
the future business of my life, and I trust that you will for- 
get all that has been said this morning. Good-bye." 

She gave him her hand. He held it with a gentle press- 
ure as he answered her. 

“It is impossible for me to forget anything that you 
have said, but you shall find me as secret as the grave. 
Good-bye." 

He bent his head and touched her hand lightly with his 
lips before releasing it. In the next instant he was gone. 

“ How she loves that snob!" he said to himself, as he 
walked away from Half-Moon Street. “ And how charm- 
ing she is! Rich too. I could scarcely make a better 
match. It is a case in which inclination and prudence go 
together. And how easily I might have won her but for 
that man! Well, well, I don't despair of ultimate victory, 
in spite of Gilbert Sinclair. Everything comes to the man 
who knows how to wait." 


WEAVERS AED WEFT. 


3r 


CHAPTER V. 

“the dream is ended. 

Mrs. Walsingham wrote to Gilbert Sinclair, immedi- 
ately after Mr. Wyatt’s departure, a few hasty lines beg- 
ging him to come to her without delay. 

“Something has occurred,” she wrote, “ an event of 
supreme importance to me. I will tell you nothing mor& 
till we meet.” 

She dispatched her groom to the Albany with this note,, 
and then waited with intense impatience for Gilbert Sin- 
clair’s coming. If he were at home, it was scarcely possi- 
ble he could refuse to come to her. 

“ I shall know the worst very soon,” she said to berself,. 
as she sat behind the flowers that shaded her window^ 
“ After to-day there shall be no uncertainty between us — 
no further reservation on my part — no more acting on his. 
He shall find that I am not his dupe, to be fooled to the 
last point, and to be taken by surprise some fine morning 
by the announcement of his marriage in the ‘ Times.’ ” 

Mr. Sinclair was not at home when the note was deliv- 
ered, but between two and three o’clock in the afternoon 
his thundering knock assailed the door, and he came into^ 
the room unannounced. 

In spite of the previous night’s ball he had ridden fifteen 
miles into the country that morning to attend a sale of 
hunters, and was looking flushed with his long ride. 

“ What on earth is the matter, Clara?” he asked. “ I 
have been out since eight o’clock. Poor Towniey’s studi 
was sold off this morning at a pretty little place he had be- 
yond Barnet, and I rode down there to see if there was 
anything worth bidding for. I might have saved myself 
the trouble, for I never saw such a pack of screws. The 
ride was pleasant enough, however. ” 

“ I wonder you were out so early after last night’s dance. 

“ Oh, you’ve seen my name down among the swells,” he 
answered, with rather a forced laugh. “ Yes, I was hard 
at it last night, no end of waltzes and galops. But, yott 
know, late hours never make much difference to me.” 

“ Was it a very pleasant party?” 


38 


WEAVERS AlfD WEFT. 


‘‘ The usual thing — too many people for the rooms. 

Your favorite. Miss Clanyarde, was there, I see/^ 

‘‘ Yes, the Clanyardes were there. But I suppose you 
haven T sent for me to ask questions about Lady Deptford ^s 
ball.^ I thought by your letter something serious had hap- 
pened. 

“ Something serious has happened. My husband is 
dead.’^ 

She said the words very slowly, with her eyes fixed on 
Gilbert Sinclair's face. The florid color faded suddenly 
out of his cheeks, and left him ghastly pale. Of all the 
events within the range of probability, this was the last he 
had expected to hear of, and the most unwelcome. 

‘‘ Indeed he stammered, after an awkward pause. “ I 
supppose I ought to congratulate you on the recovery of 
your freedom:^' 

“ 1 am very glad to be free.^^ 

‘‘ What did he die of — Colonel Walsingham? And how 
did you get the news?’^ 

‘‘ Through a foreign paper. He was killed in a duel.^^ 

And then she repeated the contents of the paragraph 
James Wyatt had read to her. 

“ Is the news correct, do you think? No mistake about 
the identity of the person in question?’^ 

“ None whatever, I am convinced. However, I shall 
drive into the city presently, and see the solicitor who ar- 
ranged our separation. I know the colonel was in the habit 
of corresponding with him, and no doubt he will be able to 
give me official intelligence of the event. 

After this there came another pause, more awkward than 
the first. Gilbert sat with his eyes fixed upon the carpet, 
tracing out the figures of it meditatively with his stick, with 
an air of study as profound as if he had been an art de- 
signer bent upon achieving some novel combination of 
form and color. Clara Walsingham sat opposite to him, 
waiting for him to speak, with a pale, rigid face, that grew 
more stony-looking as the silence continued. That silence 
became at last quite unendurable, and Gilbert felt himself 
obliged to say something, no matter what. 

“ Does this business make any alteration in your circum- 
stances?’^ Gilbert asked, with a faint show of interest. 

“ Only for the better. I surrendered to the colonel the 
income of one of the estates my father left me, in order to 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


39 


bribe him into consenting to a separation. Henceforward 
the income will be mine. My poor father took pains to se- 
cure me from the possibility of being ruined by a husband. 
My fortune was wholly at my own disposal, but I was will- 
ing to make the surrender in question in exchange for mv 
liberty. 

‘‘ I am glad to find you will be so well off/^ said Mr. 
Sinclair, still engrossed by the pattern of the carpet. 

‘‘ Is that all you have to say?^^ 

‘‘ What more can I say upon the subject?^^ 

‘‘ There was a time when you would have said a great 
deal more. 

Very likely,^ ^ answered Gilbert, bluntly; ‘‘but then, 
you see, that time is past and gone. What is it Eriar Ba- 
con^s brazen head said, ‘ Time is, time was, timers past?^ 
Come, Clara, it is very little use for you and me to play at 
cross-purposes. Why did you send for me in such hot 
haste to tell me of your husband ^s death 

“ Because I had reason to consider the news would be as 
welcome to you as it was to me.^^ 

‘ ‘ That might have been so if the event had happened a 
year or two ago; unhappily your release comes too late for 
my welfare. You accused me the other day of intending; 
to jilt you. I think that was scarcely fair when it is re- 
membered how long I was contented to remain your de- 
voted slave, patiently waiting for something better than 
slavery. There is a limit to all things, however, and I 
confess the bondage became a little irksome at last, and I 
began to look in other directions for the happiness of my 
future life. 

“ Does that mean that you are going to be married 
“ It does.^^ 

“ The lady is Miss Clanyarde, I conclude, said Mrs. 
Walsingham. Her breathing was a little hurried, but there 
was no other outward sign of the storm that raged within. 

“ Yes, the lady is Constance Clanyarde. And now, my 
dear Clara, let me entreat you to be reasonable, and to con- 
sider how long I waited for the chance that has come at last 
too late to be of any avail, so far as I am concerned. I am 
not coxcomb enough to fear that you will regret me very 
much, and I am sure you know that I shall always regard 
you with the warmest friendship and admiration. With 
your splendid attractions you will have plenty of oppor- 


40 


WEAVERS AIs^D WEFT. 


tunities in the matrimonial line, and will have, I dare say, 
little reason to lament my secession.-’’ 

OJara Walsingham looked at him with unutterable scorn. 

‘‘ And I once gave you credit for a heart, Gilbert Sin- 
clair,” she said. “ Well, the dream is ended.” 

Don’t let us part ill friends, Clara. Say you wish me 
well in my new life.” 

“ I can not say anything so false. No, Gilbert, 1 will 
not take your hand. There can be no such thing as friend- 
ship between you and me. ” 

“ That seems rather hard,” answered Sinclair, in a sulky 
tone. “ But let it be as you please. Good-bye.” 

“ Good -morning, Mr. Sinclair.” 

Mrs. Walsingham rang the bell, but before her sum- 
mons could be answered, Gilbert Sinclair had gone out of 
the house. He walked back to the Albany in a very 
gloomy frame of mind, thinking it a hard thing that 
Colonel Walsingham should have chosen this crisis for his 
death. He was glad that the interview was over, and that 
Clara knew what she had to expect, but he felt an uneasy 
sense that the business was not yet finished. 

She took it pretty quietly, upon the whole,” he said 
to himself; “ but there v/as a look in her eyes that I didn’t 
like. ” 

Mrs. Walsingham called on her late husband’s lawyer in 
the course of the afteroon, and received a confirmation of 
James Wyatt’s news. Her husband’s death increased her 
income from two to three thousand a year, arising chiefly 
from landed property which had been purchased by her fa- 
ther, a city tradesman, who had late in life conceived the 
idea of becoming a country squire, and had died of the 
■dullness incident upon an unrecognized position in the 
depths of the country. His only daughter’s marriage with 
Colonel Walsingham had been a severe affliction to him, but 
he had taken care to settle his money upon her in such a 
manner as to secure it from any serious depredations on the 
part of the husband. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


41 


CHAPTER VI. 

“arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell.^^ 

The summer had melted into autumn, the London sea- 
son was over, and the Clanyardes had left their furnished 
house in Eaton Place, which the viscount had taken for the 
season, to return to Marchbrook, where Gilbert Sinclair 
was to follow them as a visitor. He had proposed for Con- 
stance, and had been accepted — with much inward rejoic- 
ing on the part of the lady’s father; with a strange conflict 
of feeling in the mind of the lady herself. Did she love 
the man she had promised to marry Well, no; there was 
no such feeling as love for Gilbert Sinclair in her mind. She 
thought him tolerably good-looking, and not exactly disa- 
greeable, and it had been impressed upon her that he was 
one of the richest men in England — a man who could be- 
stow upon her everything which a well-bred young lady 
must, by nature and education, desire. The bitter pinch 
of poverty had been severely felt at Marchbrook, and the 
Clanyarde girls had been taught, in an indirect kind of 
way, that they were bound to contribute to the restoration 
of the family fortunes by judicious marriages. The two 
elder girls, Adela and Margaret, had married well — one Sir 
Henry Elrington, a Sussex baronet, with a very nice place 
and a comfortable income, the other a rich East Indian 
merchant, considerably past middle age. But the fortunes 
of Sir Henry, and Mr. Campion, the merchant, were as 
nothing compared with the wealth of Gilbert Sinclair; and 
Lord Clanyarde told his daughter Constance that she would 
put her sisters to sjiame by the brilliancy of her marriage. 
He flew into a terrible passion when she at first expressed 
herself disinclined to accept Mr. Sinclair’s offer, and asked 
her how she dared to fly in the face of Providence by refus- 
ing such a splendid destiny. What in Heaven’s name did 
she expect, a girl without a sixpence of her own, and with 
nothing but her pretty face and aristocratic lineage to rec- 
ommend her? He sent his wife to talk to her, and Lady 
Clanyarde, who was a very meek person, and lived in a 
state of perpetual subservience to her husband, held forth 
dolefully to her daughter for upward of an hour upon the 


42 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


foolishness and ingratitude of her course. Then came the 
two married sisters with more lecturing and persuasion, 
and at last the girl gave way, fairly tired out, and scolded 
into a kind of desponding submission. 

So Gilbert Sinclair came one morning to Eaton Place, 
and finding Miss Clanyarde alone in the drawing-room, 
made her a solemn offer of his heart and hand. ‘He had 
asked her to be his wife before this, and she had put him off 
with an answer that was almost a refusal. Then had come 
the scolding and lecturing, and she had been schooled into 
resignation to a fate that seemed to her irresistible. She 
told her suitor that she did not love him — that if she ac- 
cepted him it would be in deference to her father^s wishes, 
and that she could give him nothing better than duty and 
gratitude in return for the affection he was so good as to 
entertain for her. This was enough for Gilbert, who was 
bent on winning her for his wife, in a headstrong, reckless 
spirit, that made no count of the cost. But as Miss Clan- 
yarde sat by and by with her hand in his, and listened to 
his protestations of affection, there rose before her the vis- 
ion of a face that was not Gilbert Sinclair's — a darkly 
splendid face, that had looked upon her with such unutter- 
able love one summer day in the shadowy Kentish lane; and 
she wished that Cyprian Davenant had carried her off to 
some strange, desolate land, in which they might have lived 
and died together. 

“ What will he think of me when he hears that I have 
sold myself to this man for the sake of his fortune she 
asked herself, and then she looked up at Gilbert’s face and 
wondered whether she could ever teach herself to love him, 
nr to be grateful to him for his love. 

All this had happened within a week of Gilbert's final 
interview with Mrs. Walsingham, and in a very short time 
the fact of Mr. Sinclair's engagement to Miss Clanyarde 
was pretty well known to all that gentleman's friends and 
acquaintance. He was very proud of carrying off a girl 
whose beauty had made a considerable sensation in the two 
past seasons, and he talked of his matrimonial projects in 
a swaggering, boastful way that was eminently distasteful 
to some of his acquaintances. Men who were familiar with 
Mr. Sinclair's antecedents shrugged their shoulders om- 
inously when his marriage was discussed, and augured ill 
for the future happiness of Miss Clanyarde. 


WEAVEES AND WEFT. 


43 


James Wyatt was one of the first to congratulate him 
upon his betrothal. 

‘‘Yes/^ answered Gilbert, “ she^s a lovely girl, isn^t 
she? and, of course, I^m very proud of her affection. It^s 
to be a regular love-match, you know. I wouldnH marry 
the handsomest woman in the world if I were not secure on 
that point. I don^t say the father hasn^t an eye to my 
fortune. He’s a thorough man of the world, and, of 
course, fully alive to that kind of thing. But Constance is 
superior to any such consideration. If I didn’t believe that, 
I wouldn’t- be such a fool as to stake my happiness on the 
venture.” 

‘‘ I scarcely fancied you would look at matters from such 
a sentimental point of view,” said Mr. Wyatt, thoughtful- 
ly, “ especially as this is by no means your first love.” 

It is the first love worth speaking of,” answered the 
other. “ I never knew what it was to be passionately in 
love till I met Constance Clanyarde.” 

‘‘ Not with Mrs. Walsingham?” 

No, Jim. I did care for her a good deal once upon a 
time, but never as I care for Constance. I think if that 
girl were to play me false I should kill myself. By the way, 
I’m sure you know more about Sir Cyprian Davenant than 
you were inclined to confess the other night. I fancy there 
was some kind of love affair — some youthful flirtation — be- 
tween him and Constance. You might as well tell me 
everything you know about it.” 

‘‘ I know nothing about Miss Clanyarde, and I can tell 
-you nothing about Davenant. He and I are old friends, 
and I am too fully in his confidence to talk of his senti- 
ments or his affairs.” 

“ What a confounded prig you are, Wyatt. But you 
can’t deny that Davenant was in love with Constance. I 
don’t believe she has ever cared a straw for him, however; 
and if he should live to come back to England, I shall take 
good care he never darkens my doors. How about that 
place of his, by the bye? Is it in the market?” 

“ Yes; I have received Sir Cyprian’s instructions to sell 
whenever I see a favorable opportunity. He won’t profit 
much by the sale, poor fellow, for it is mortgaged up to the 
hilt.” 

‘‘ I’ll look at the place while at Marchbrook, and if I 
like it, I may make you an offer. We shall want some- 


44 


WEAVERS AND W'EFT. 


thing nearer town than the place my father built in the 
north, but I shall not give up that, either/’ 

“You can afford a couple of country-seats, and you will 
liave a house in town, of course?” 

“ Yes, I have been thinking of Park Lane, but it is so 
^difficult to get anything there. I’ve told the agents what I 
want, however, and I dare say they’ll find something be- 
fore long.” 

“ When are you to be married?” 

“Not later than October, 1 hope. There is not the 
•shadow of a reason for delay.” 

At Marchbrook everything went pleasantly enough with 
the plighted lovers. Lord Clanyarde had filled the house 
with company, and his youngest daughter had very little 
time for reflection or regret upon the subject of her ap- 
proaching marriage. Everybody congratulated her upon 
her conquest, and praised Gilbert Sinclair with such a 
show of enthusiasm that she began to think he must be 
worthy of a warmer regard than she was yet able to feel 
for him. She told herself that in common gratitude she 
was bound to return his affection, and she tried her utmost 
to please him by a ready submission to all his wishes; but 
the long drives and rides, in which they were always side 
by side, were very wearisome to her, nor could his gayest 
talk of the future, the houses, the yacht, the carriages and 
horses that were to be hers, inspire her with any expecta- 
tion of happiness. 

They rode over to Davenant with Lord Clanyarde one 
morning, and explored the old house, Gilbert looking at 
<everything in a business-like spirit, which jarred a little 
-upon Constance, remembering that luckless exile who had 
loved the place so well. Her lover consulted her about the 
•disposition of the rooms, the colors of the new draperies, 
and the style of the furniture. 

“We’ll get rid of the gloomy old tapestries, and have 
•^everything modern and bright,” he said; but Lord Clan- 
yarde pleaded hard for the preservation of the tapestry on 
the principal floor, which was very fine, and in excellent 
condition. 

“ Oh, very well,” answered Gilbert, carelessly. “ In 
that case we’ll keep the tapestry. I suppose the best plan 
will be to get some first-class London man to furnish the 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


45 


liouse. Those fellows always have good taste. But of 
course he must defer to you in all matters, Constance.’^ 

“ You are very good,^^ she returned, listlessly. “ But I 
don’t think there will be any necessity for my interfer- 
ence.” 

Don’t say that, Constance. That looks as if you were 
not interested in the subject, ” Gilbert said, with rather a 
discontented air. 

The listlessness of manner which his betrothed so often 
displayed was by no means pleasing to him. There was a 
disagreeable suspicion growing in his mind that Miss Clan- 
yarde’s heart had not quite gone with her acceptance of his 
oSer, that family influences had something to do with her 
consent to become his wife. He was not the less resolved 
on this account to hold her to her promise; but his selfish, 
tyrannical nature resented her coldness, and he was deter- 
mined that the balance should be adjusted between them 
in the future. 

“ Perhaps you don’t like this place, Constance,” he said, 
presently, after watching her thoughtful face for some 
minutes in silence. 

Oh, yes, Gilbert, I am very fond of Davenant. I have 
known it* all my life, you know.” 

Then I wish you’d look a little more cheerful about 
my intended purchase. I thought it would please you to 
have a country-house so near your own family.” 

And it does please her very much, I am sure, Sin- 
clair,” said Lord Clanyarde, with a stealthy frown at his 
daughter. ‘‘ She can’t fail to appreciate the kindness and 
delicacy of your choice.” 

‘‘ Papa is quite right, Gilbert,” added Constance. I 
should be very ungrateful if I were not pleased with your 
kindness.” 

After this she tried her utmost to sustain an appearance 
of interest in the discussion of furniture and decorations; 
but every now and then she found her mind wandering 
away to the banished owner of those rooms, and she wished 
that Gilbert Sinclair had chosen any other habitation upon 
this earth for her future home. 

October came, and with it the inevitable day which was 
to witness one more perjury from the lips of a bride. The 
wedding took place at the little village church near March- 
brook, and was altogether a very brilliant affair, attended 


46 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


by all the relatives of the Clanyarde family, who were 
numerous, and by a great many acquaintances of bride 
and bridegroom. Notable among the friends of the latter 
was James Wyatt, the solicitor who had been employed in 
the drawing up of the marriage settlement, which was a 
most liberal one, and highly satisfactory to Viscount Clan- 
yarde. Mr. Wyatt made himself excessively agreea'ble at 
the breakfast, and was amazingly popular among the 
bride-maids. He did not long avail himself of the March- 
brook hospitalities, but went quietly back to town by rail 
almost immediately after the departure of the newly mar- 
ried couple on their honeymoon trip to the south of France. 
He had an engagement in Half-Moon Street that evening 
at eight o’clock. 

The neighboring clocks were striking the hour as he 
knocked at the door. Mrs. Walsingham was quite alone 
in the drawing-room, and looked unusually pale in the 
light of the lamps. The solicitor shook his head reproach- 
fully as he pressed her hand. 

“This is very sad,” he murmured, in a semi-paternal 
manner. “ You have been worrjiing yourself all day long, 
I know. You are as pale as a ghost.” 

“ I am a little tired, that is all.” 

“ You have been out to-day? You told me you should 
not stir from the house.” 

“ I changed my mind at the last moment. Anything 
was better than staying at home keeping the day like a 
black fast. Besides,"! wanted to see how Gilbert and his 
bride would look at the altar. ” 

“ You have been down to Kent?” 

“ Yes; .1 was behind the curtains of the organ-loft. The 
business was easily managed by means of a sovereign to the 
clerk. I wore my plainest dress and a thick veil, so there 
was very little risk of detection.” 

“ What folly!” exclaimed Wyatt. 

“ Yes, it was great folly, no doubt; but it is the nature 
of women to be foolish. And now tell me all about the 
wedding. Did Gilbert look very happy?” 

“ He looked like a man who has got his own way, and 
who cares very little what price he has paid, or may have 
to pay, for the getting it.” 

‘ And do you think he will be happy?” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 47 

Nofc if his happiness depends upon the love of his 
wife. ✓ 

“ Then you donT think she loves him?^^ 

‘‘lam sure she does not. I made a study of her face 
during the ceremony and afterward; and if ever a woman 
sold herself, or was sold by her people, this woman is guilty 
of such a bargain. 

“ Perhaps you say this to please me,^^ said Clara, doubt- 
fully. 

“ I do not, Mrs. Walsingham. I am convinced that this 
affair has been brought about by Lord Clanyarde’s neces- 
sities, and not the young lady^s choice. But I doubt 
whether this will make much difference to Gilbert in the 
long run. He is not a man of fine feelings, you know, 
and I think he will be satisfied with the fact of having won 
the woman he wanted to marry. I should fancy matters 
would go smoothly enough with him so long as he sees no 
cause for jealousy. He would be rather an ugly customer 
if he took it into his head to be jealous. 

“ And you think his life will go smoothly, said Clara, 
“ and that he will go on to the end unpunished for his 
perfidy to me?^^ 

“ What good would his punishment be to you?” 

“It would be all the world to me.” 

“ And if I could bring about the retribution you desire, 
if it were in my power to avenge your wrongs, what re- 
ward would you give me?” 

She hesitated for a moment, knowing there was only one 
reward he was likely to claim from her. 

“ If you were a poor man, I would offer you two-thirds 
of my fortune,” she said. 

“But you know that I am not a poor man. If I can 
come to you some day, and tell you that Gilbert Sinclair 
and his wife are parted forever, will you accept me for your 
husband?” 

“Yes,” she answered, suddenly; “break the knot be- 
tween those two — let me be assured that he has lost the 
woman for whose sake he jilted me, and I will refuse you 
nothing. 

“ Consider it done. There is nothing in the world I 
would not achieve to win you for my wife.” 


48 


WEAVERS AND WEET. 


CHAPTER VIL 

GREEJSr-EYED JEALOUSY/^ 

It was not till the early spring that Mr. and Mrs”. Sin- 
clair returned to England. They had spent the winter in 
Rome, where Gilbert had found some congenial friends, 
and where their time had been occupied in one perpetual 
round of gayety and dissipation. Constance had shown a. 
great taste for pleasure since her marriage. She seemed 
to know no weariness of visiting and being visited, and peo- 
ple who remembered her in her girlish days were surprised 
to find what a thorough woman of the world she had be- 
come. Nor was Gilbert displeased that it should be so. 
He liked to see his wife occupy a prominent position in 
society, and having no taste himself for the pleasures of 
the domestic hearth, he was neither surprised nor vexed by 
Constance's indifference to her home. Of course it would 
all be different at Davenant Park; there would be plenty 
of home life there — a little too much, perhaps, Gilbert 
thought, with a yawn. 

They had been married nearly four months, and ther& 
had not been the shadow of disagreement between them. 
Constance's manner to her husband was amiability itself. 
She treated him a little de haut en bas it is true, made her 
own plans for the most part without reference to him, and 
graciously informed him of her arrangements after they 
were completed. But then, on the other hand, she never 
objected to his disposal of his time, was never exacting, or 
jealous, or capricious, as Clara Walsingham had been. 
She was always agreeable to his friends, and was eminent- 
ly popular with all of them: so Gilbert Sinclair was, upon 
the whole, perfectly satisfied with the result of his mar- 
riage, and had no fear of evil days in the future. What 
James Wyatt had said of him was perfectly true. He was 
not gifted with very fine feelings, and that sense of some- 
thing wanting in such a union, which would have disturbed 
the mind of a nobler man, did not trouble him. 

They returned to England early in February, and went 
at once to Davenant, which had been furnished in the 
modern mediaeval style by a West End upholsterer. The 


WEAVERS Al^D WEFT. 


49 ^ 


staff of servants had been provided by Lady Clanyarde^ 
who had bestowed much pains and labor upon the task of 
selection, bitterly bewailing the degeneracy of the race she? 
had to deal with during the performance of this difficult 
service. All was ready when Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair arrived. 
A pompous housekeeper simpered and courtesied in the 
hall; an accomplished cook hovered tenderly over the roasts- 
and the stew-pans in the great kitchen; house-maids in 
smart caps flitted about the passages and poked the fires in 
bedrooms and dressing-rooms, bath-rooms and morning- 
room, eager to get an early look at their new lady; a butler 
of the usual clerical appearance ushered the way to the 
lamp-lit drawing-room, while two ponderous footmen con- 
veyed the rugs and newspapers and morocco bags from the 
carriage, leaving all the heavier luggage to the care of un- 
known underlings attached to the stabJe department. Mr. 
and Mrs. Sinclair dined alone upon this first evening of 
their return, under the inspection of the clerical butler and 
the two ponderous footmen. They talked chiefly about 
the house, which rooms were most successful in their new 
arrangement, and so on; a little about what they had beert 
doing in Rome; and a little about their plans for the next 
month, what guests were to be invited, and what room& 
they were to occupy. -It was all the most matter-of-fact 
conventional talk, but the three men retired with the im- 
pression that Gilbert Sinclair and his wife were a very happy 
couple, and reported to that effect in the house keeper^'s 
room and the servants’ hall. 

Before the week had ended the great house was full of 
company. That feverish desire for gayety and change 
which had seemed a part of Constance’s nature since her 
marriage, in no way subsided on her arrival at Davenant. 
She appeared to exist for pleasure and pleasure only, and 
her guests declared her the most charming hostess that ever 
reigned over a country-house. Lavish as he was, Mr. Sin- 
clair opened his eyes to their widest extent when he per- 
ceived his wife’s capacity for spending money. 

‘‘ It’s rather lucky for you that you didn’t marry a poor 
man, Constance, ” he said, with a boastful laugh. 

She looked at him ’for a moment with a strange expres- 
sion, and then turned very pale. ‘‘ I should not have been 
afraid to face poverty,” she said, ‘‘if it had been my fate 
to do so. ” 


50 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


“ If you could have faced it with the man you liked, eh,* 
Constance? That^s about what you mean, isn^t it?^' 

‘‘Is this intended for a complaint, Gilbert?'^ his wife 
asked, in her coldest tones. “ Have I been spending too 
much money? 

“ No, no, I didn^t mean that. I was only congratulating 
you upon your fitness for the position of a rich man^s 
wife.'’^ 

This was the first little outbreak of jealousy of which Gil- 
bert Sinclair had been guilty. He knew that his wife did 
not love him, that his conquest had been achieved through 
the influence of her family, and he was almost angry with 
himself for being so fond of her. He could not forget 
those vague hints that had been dropped about Sir Cyprian 
Davenant, and was tormented by the idea that James Wyatt 
knew a great deal more than he had revealed on this point. 
This hidden jealousy had been at the bottom of his pur- 
chase of the Davenant estate. He took a savage pride in 
reigning over the little kingdom from which his rival had 
been deposed. 

Among the visitors from London appeared Mr. Wyatt, 
always unobtrusive, and always useful. He contrived to 
ingratiate himself very rapidly in Mrs. Sinclair's favor, and 
established himself as a kind of adjutant in her household 
corps, always ready with advice upon every social subject, 
from the costumes in a tableau vivant to the composition 
of the menu for a dinner-party. Constance did not par- 
ticularly like him; but she lived in a world in which it is 
not necessary to have a veiy sincere regard for one^s ac- 
quaintance, and she considered him an agreeable person, 
much to be preferred to the generality of her husband^s 
chosen companions, who were men without a thought be- 
yond the hunting field and the race-course. 

Mr. Wyatt, on his part, was a little surprised to see the 
manner in which Lord Clan3'^arde^s daughter filled her new 
position, the unfailing vivacity which she displayed in the 
performance of her duties as a hostess, and the excellent 
terms upon which she appeared to live with her husband. 
He was accustomed, however, to look below the surface of 
things, and by the time he had been a fortnight at Dave- 
nant he had discovered that all this brightness and gayety 
■on the part of the wife indicated an artificial state of being, 
which was very far from real happiness, and that there 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


51 


was a growing sense of disappointment on the part of the 
husband. 

He was not in the habit of standing upon much cere- 
mony in his intercourse with Gilbert Sinclair, and on the 
first convenient occasion questioned him with blunt direct- 
ness upon the subject of his marriage. 

‘‘ I hope the alliance has brought you all the happiness 
you anticipated?^^ he said. 

‘‘ Oh, yes, Jim,” Mr. Sinclair answered, rather moodily, 

“ my wife suits me pretty well. We get on very well to- 
gether. She’s a little too fond of playing the woman of 
fashion; but she’ll get tired of that in time, I dare say. 
I’m fond of society myself, you know, couldn’t lead a soli- 
tary life for any woman in Christendom: but I should like 
a wife who seemed to care a little more for my company, 
and was not always occupied with otlier people. I don’t 
think we have dined alone three times since we were 
married.” 

It was within a few days of this conversation that Mr. 
Wyatt gratified himself with the performance of a little 
experiment which he had devised in the comfortable retire- 
ment of his bachelor room at Davenant. He had come into 
Mrs. Sinclair’s morning-room after breakfast to consult 
her upon the details of an amateur dramatic performance 
that was to take place shortly, and had, for a wonder, 
found the husband and wife alone together. 

‘‘ Perhaps we’d better discuss the business at some other 
time,” he said. I know Sinclair doesn’t care much 
about this sort of thing.” 

‘‘ Is that your theatrical rubbish?” asked Gilbert. 

‘‘ You’d better say what you’ve got to say about it. Y^ou 
needn’t mind me. I can absorb myself in the study of 
‘ Bell’s Life ’ for a quarter of an hour or so. ” 

He withdrew to one of the windows, and occupied him- ' 
self with his newspaper, while James Wyatt showed Con- 
stance the books of some farces that had just come to him 
by post, and discussed the fitness of each for drawing-room 
representation. 

‘‘ Every^amateur in polite society believes himself able 
to play dharles Matthews’ business,” he said, laughing. 

“ It is a fixed delusion of the human mind. Of course we 
shall set them all by the ears, do what we may. Perhaps 
it would be better to let them draw lots for the characters. 


52 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


or we might put the light comedy parts up to auction, and 
send the proceeds to the poor-box/^ 

He ran on in this strain gayly enough, writing lists of the 
characters and pieces, and putting down the names of the 
guests with a rapid pen as he talked, until Gilbert Sinclair 
threw down his newspaper and came over to the fire-place, 
politely requesting his friend to “ stop that row/^ 

It was a hopelessly wet morning, and the master of Dave- 
nant was sorely at a loss for amusement and occupation. 
He had come to his wife^s room in rather a defiant spirit, 
determined that she should favor him with a little more of 
her society than it was her habit to give him, and he had 
found her writing letters, which she declared were impera- 
tive, and had sat by the fire waiting for her correspondence 
to be finished, in a very sulky mood. 

“ What^s the last news, Wyatt?^^ he asked, poking the 
fire savagely; “ anything stirring in London?^^ 

“ Noting — in London. There is some news of an old 
friend of mine who's far away from London — news I don't 
altogether like." 

“ Some client who has bolted in order to swindle you out, 
of a long bill of costs, I suppose," answered Gilbert, in- 
differently. 

“ No; the friend I am talking of is a gentleman we all 
know — the late owner of this place." 

‘‘ Sir Cyprian Davenantr" cried Gilbert. 

Constance looked up from her writing. 

Sir Cyprian Davenant," repeated James Wyatt. 

“ Has anything happened to him.^" 

About the last and worst thing that can happen to any 
man, I fear," answered the lawyer. “ For some time 
since there have been no reports of Captain Harcourt's ex- 
pedition; and that in a negative way, was about as bad as 
it could be. But in a letter I received this morning, from 
a member of the Geographical Society, there is worse news. 
My friend tells me there is a very general belief that Har- 
■court and his party have been made away with by the na- 
tives. Of course this is only club gossip as yet, and I trust 
that it may turn out a false alarm." 

Constance had dropped her pen, making a great blot 
upon the page. She was very pale, and her hands were 
clasped nervously upon the table before her. Gilbert 
watched her with eager, angry eyes. It was Just such an 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 53 

opportunity as he had wished for. He wanted above all 
things to satisfy his doubts about that man. 

“ I don^t see that it much matters whether the report is 
true or false/^ he said, as far as Davenant is concerned. 
The fellow is a scamp, and only left England because he 
had spent his last sixpence in dissipation. 

‘‘ I-beg your pardon, Sinclair,^^ remonstrated Mr. Wyatt, 

the Davenant property was impoverished by Cyprian's 
father and grandfather. I don’t say that he was not ex- 
travagant himself at one period of his life, but he had re- 
formed long before he left England.” 

“ Reformed — yes, when he had no more money to spend. 
That’s a common kind of reform. However, I suppose 
you’ve profited so much by his ruin that you can afford to 
praise him.” 

“ Hadn’t you better ring the bell?” asked James Wyatt, 
very quietly; “ I think Mrs. Sinclair has fainted.” 

He was right; Constance Sinclair’s head had fallen back 
upon the cushion of her chair, and her eyes were closed. 
Oilbert ran across to her, and seized her hand. It was 
deadly cold. 

Yes,” he said, ‘‘ she has fainted. Sir Cyprian was an 
old friend of hers. You know that better than I do, though 
you have never chosen to tell me the truth. And now I 
suppose you have trumped up this story in order to let me 
see what a fool I have been.” 

“ It is not a trumped-up story,” returned the other. 

It is the common talk among men who know the travel- 
ers and their line of country.’^ 

‘‘ Then for your friend’s sake it is to be hoped it’s true. ” 

“ Why so?” 

‘ ‘ Because if he has escaped those black fellows to come 
my way, it will be so much the worse for both of us; for as 
sure as there is a sky above us, if he and I meet I shall kill 
Rim. ” 

Bah,” muttered Mr. Wyatt, contemptuously, “ we 
don’t live in the age for that sort of thing. Here comes 
your wife’s maid; I’ll get out of the way. Pray apologize 
to Mrs. Sinclair for my indiscretion in forgetting that Sir 
Cyprian was a friend pf her family. It was only natural 
that she should be affected by the news. ” 

The lawyer went away as the maid came into the room. 


54 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


His face was brightened by a satisfied smile as lie walked 
slowly along the corridor leading to the billiard-room. 

Othello was a fool to him in the matter of jealousy/^ 
he said to himself. “ I think I\e fired the train. If th& 
news I heard is true, and Davenant is on his way home, 
therein be nice work by and by.^^ 


CHAPTER VIIL 

‘‘had you loved me once as you have not LOVED. 

Gilbert Sinclair said very little to his wife about tho 
fainting fit. She was herself perfectly candid upon the 
subject. Sir Cyprian was an old friend — a friend whom she 
had known and liked ever since lier childhood — and Mr» 
Wyatt ^s news had quite overcome her. She did not seem to 
consider it necessary to apologize for her emotion. 

“ I have been overexerting myself a little lately, or I 
should scarcely have fainted, however sorry I felt,^^ she 
said, quietly, and Gilbert wondered at her self-possession, 
but was not the less convinced that she had loved — that she 
still did love — Cyprian Davenant. He watched her closely 
after this to see if he could detect any signs of hidden grief, 
but her manner in society had lost none of its brightness, 
and when the Harcourt expedition was next spoken of she 
bore her part in the conversation with perfect ease. 

Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair left Davenant early in May for a 
charming house in Park Lane, furnished throughout in 
delicate tints of white and green, like a daisy-sprinkled 
meadow in early spring, a style in which the upholsterer 
had allowed full scope to the sentimentality of his own nat- 
ure, bearing in mind that the house was to be occupied by 
a newly married couple. Mrs. Sinclair declared herself 
perfectly satisfied with the house, and Mrs. Sinclair’s 
friends were in raptures with it. She instituted a Thursday 
evening supper after the opera, which was an immense suc- 
cess, and enjoyed a popularity that excited some envy on 
the part of unmarried beauties. Mrs. Walsingham heard 
of the Thursday evening parties, and saw her beautiful 
rival very often at the opera; but she heard from James 
Wyatt that Gilbert Sinclair spent a great deal of time at 
his club, and made a point of attending all the race meet- 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


55 


ings, habits that did not augur very well for his domestic 
happiness. 

“He will grow tired of her, as he did of me,^^ thought 
Clara Walsingham. 

But Gilbert was in no way weary of his wife. He loved 
her as passionately as he had loved her at the first: with an 
exacting selfish passion, it is true, but with all the intensity 
of which his nature was capable. If he had lived in the 
good old feudal days he would have shut her up in some 
lonely turret chamber, where no one but himself could ap- 
proach her. He knew that she did not love him; and 
with his own affection for her there was always mingled an 
angry sense of her coldness and ingratitude. 

The London season came to an end once more, and Mr. 
and Mrs. Sinclair went back to Davenant. Nothing had 
been heard of Sir Cyprian or his companions throughout 
the summer, and Gilbert had ceased to trouble himself 
about his absent rival. The man was dead in all prob- 
ability, and it was something more than folly to waste a 
thought upon him. So things went on pleasantly enough, 
until the early spring gave a baby daughter to the master 
of Davenant, much to his disappointment, as he ardently 
desired a son and heir. 

The birth of this infant brought a new sense of joy to 
the mind of Constance Sinclair. She had not thought it 
possible that the child could give her so much happiness. 
She devoted herself to her baby with a tenderness which 
was at first very pleasing to her husband, but which became 
by and by distasteful to him. He grew jealous of the 
<jhild’s power to absorb so much affection from one who 
had never given him the love he longed for. The existence 
of his daughter seemed to bring him no nearer to his wife. 
The time and attention which she had given to society she 
now gave to her child; but her husband was no more to her 
than he had ever been, a little less, perhaps, as he told 
himself angrily, in the course of his gloomy meditations. 

Mrs. Walsingham read the announcement of the infantas 
birth in extreme bitterness of spirit, and when James Wyatt 
next called upon her she asked him what had become of 
his promise that those two should be parted by his agency. 

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. “ I 
did not tell you that the parting should take place within 


56 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


any given time/^ he said; but it shall go hard with me if 
I do not keep my promise sooner or later. 

He had indeed not been idle. The wicked work which 
he had set himself to do had progressed considerably. It 
was he who always contrived, in a subtle manner, to re- 
mind Gilbert Sinclair of his wife^s coldness toward himself,, 
and to hint at her affection for another, while seeming to 
praise and defend her. Throughout their acquaintance hi» 
wealthy client had treated him with a selfish indifference 
and a cool, unconscious insolence that had galled him to 
the quick, and he took a malicious pleasure in the discom- 
fiture which Sinclair had brought upon himself by his mar- 
riage. When the Sinclairs returned to London, some- 
months after the birth of the child, James Wyatt contrived 
to make himself more than ever necessary to Gilbert, who 
had taken to play higher than of old, and who now spent 
four evenings out of the six lawful days at a notorious 
whist club, sitting at the card-table till the morning sun 
shone through the chinks in the shutters. Mr. Wyatt was- 
a member of the same club, but too cautious a player for 
the set which Gilbert now affected. 

‘‘ That fellow is going to the bad in every way,^^ the law- 
yer said to himself. “ If Clara Walsingham wants to see- 
him ruined she is likely to have her wish without any direct 
interference of mine. 

The state of affairs in Park Lane was indeed far from • 
satisfactory. Gilbert had grown tired of playing the in- 
dulgent husband, and the inherent brutality of his nature? 
had on more than one occasion displayed itself in angiy 
disputes with his wife, whose will he now seemed to take a- 
pleasure in thwarting, even in trifles. He complained of 
her present extravagance, with insolent reference to the 
poverty of her girlhood, and asked savagely if she thought 
his fortune could stand forever against her expensive follies. 

‘‘I donT think my follies are so likely to exhaust your 
income as your increasing taste for horse-racing, Gilbert,^' 
she answered, coolly. “ What is to be the cost of these rac- 
ing stables you are building near Newmarket? I heard you,, 
and that dreadful man your trainer, talking of the tan gal- 
lop the other day, and it seemed to me altogether rather an 
expensive affair, especially as your horses have such a knack 
of getting beaten. It is most gentlernan-like of you to re- 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


57 


mind me of my poverty. Yes, I was very poor in my girl- 
liood — and very happy. 

“ And since you've married me you've been miserable. 
Pleasant, upon my soul! You'd have married that fellow 
C/ypriau Davenant and lived in a ten-roomed house in the 
suburbs, with a maid of all work, and called that happi- 
ness, I suppose!" 

“ If I had married Sir Cyprian Davenant I should at 
least have been the wife of a gentleman," replied Constance. 

This was not the first time that Gilbert had mentioned 
Cyprian Davenant of late. A report of the missing travel- 
ers had appeared in one of the newspapers, and their friends 
began to hope for their safe return. Gilbert Sinclair 
brooded over this probable return in a savage frame of 
mind, but did not communicate his thoughts on the subject 
to his usual confidant, Mr. Wyatt, who thereupon opined 
that those thoughts were more than ordinarily bitter. 

Before the London season was over Mr. Sinclair had oc- 
casion to attend a rather insignificant meeting in Yorkshire 
where a two-year-old filly, from which he expected great 
things in the future, was to try her strength in a handicap 
race. He came home by way of Newmarket, where he 
spent a few days pleasantly enough in the supervision of his 
new buildings, and he had been absent altogether a week 
when he returned to Park Lane. 

It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when h.e drove 
up to his own house in a hansom. He found his wife in 
the drawing-room occupied with several visitors, among 
whom appeared a tall figure which he remembered only too 
well. Sir Cyprian Davenant, bronzed with travel, and look- 
ing handsomer than when he left London. 

Gilbert stood at gaze for a moment, confounded by 
surprise, and then went through the ceremony of hand- 
shaking with his wife's guests in an awkward, embarrassed 
manner. 

Constance received him with her usual coldness, and he 
felt himself altogether at a disadvantage in the presence of 
the man he feared and hated. He seated himself, however, ‘ 
determined to see the end of this obnoxious visit, and re- 
mained moodily silent until the callers had dropped off one 
by one. Sir Cyprian among the earliest departures. 

Gilbert turned savagely upon his wife directly the room 
was clear. 


58 


WEAVERS AND WEFT., 


“ So your old favorite has lost no time in renewing his 
intimacy with you/^. he said. ‘‘ I came home at rather an 
awkward moment, I fancy. 

“ I did not perceive any particular awkwardness in your 
return/^ his wife answered, coolly, ‘‘ unless it was your own 
manner to my friends, which was a little calculated to give 
them the idea that you scarcely felt at home in your own 
house. 

“ There was some one here who seemed a little too mucli 
at home, Mrs. Sinclair — someone who will find my presence 
a good deal more awkward if I should happen to find him 
here again. In plain words, I forbid you to receive Sir 
Cyprian Davenant in my hou§e.^^ 

“ I can no more close my doors upon Sir Cyprian Dave- 
nant than on any other visitor, replied Constance, ‘‘ and 
I do not choose to insult an old friend of my family for the 
gratification of your senseless jealousy. 

“ Then you mean to defy me?’’ 

“ There is no question of defiance. I shall do what I 
consider right, without reference to this absurd fancy of 
yours. Sir Cyprian is not very likely to call upon me again,, 
unless you cultivate his acquaintance.” 

“ I am not very likely to do that,” Gilbert answered,, 
savagely. His wife’s quiet defiance baffled him, and ho 
could find nothing more to say for himself. But this jeal- 
ousy of Sir Cyprian was in no manner abated by Con- 
stance’s self-possession. He remembered the fainting fit in 
the morning-room at Davenant, and he was determined to 
find some means of punishing her for her secret preference 
for this man. An ugly notion hashed across his mind by 
and by, as he saw her with her child lying in her lap, bend- 
ing over the infant with a look of supreme affection. 

‘ ‘ She can find love for everything in the world except 
me,’ ’ he said to himself, bitterly. He had ceased to care 
for the child after the first month or so of its existence, 
being inclined to resent its sex as a personal injury, and 
disliking his wife’s devotion to the infant, which seemed 
to make her indifference to himself all the more obvious. 

He left the house when Constance went out for her daily 
drive in the park, and strolled in the same direction, caring 
very little where he went upon this particular afternoon. 
The Lady’s Mile was thronged with carriages, and there 
was a block at the corner when Gilbert took his place list- 


WEAVERS AND WEET. 


59 


lessly among the loungers who were lolling over the rails. 
He nodded to the men he knew, and answered briefly 
enough to some friendly inquiries about his luck in York- 
shire. 

“ The filly ran well enough, he said, “ but I doubt if 
she^s got stay enough *for the Chester. 

Oh, of course you want to keep her dark, Sinclair. I 
heard she was a flier, though. ” 

Mr. Sinclair did not pursue the conversation. The car- 
riages moved on for a few paces, at the instigation of a 
pompous mounted policeman, and then stopped again, 
leaving a quiet little brougham exactly in front of Gilbert 
Sinclair. The occupant of the brougham was Mrs. Walsing- 
ham. The stoppage brought her so close to Gilbert that it 
was impossible to avoid some kind of greeting. The 
widow^s handsome face paled as she recognized Gilbert, and 
then, with a sudden impulse, she held out her hand. It 
was the first time they had met since that unpleasant inter- 
view in Half-Moon Street. The opportunity was very 
gratifying to Mrs. Walsingham. She had most ardently 
desired to see how Gilbert supported his new position, to 
see for herself how far Mr. Wyatt’s account of him might 
be credited. She put on the propitiatory manner of a 
woman who has forgiven all past wrongs. 

“ Why do you never come to see me.''” she asked. 

“ I scarcely thought you would care to receive me, after 
what you said when we last met,” he replied, rather em- 
barrassed by her easy way of treating the situation. 

Let that be forgotten. It is not fair to remember 
what a woman says when she is in a passion. I think you 
expressed a wish that we might be friends afte^’ your mar- 
riage, and I was too angry to accept that proof of your re- 
gard as I should have done. I have grown wiser with the 
passage of time, and, believe me, Lam still your friend.” 

There was a softness in her tone which flattered and 
touched Gilbert Sinclair. It contrasted so sharply with the 
oool contempt he had of late suffered at the hands of his 
wife. He remembered how this woman had loved him; 
and he asked himself what good he had gained by his mar- 
riage with Constance Clanyarde, except the empty triumph 
of an alliance with a family of superior rank to his own, 
and the vain delight of marrying an acknowledged beauty. 

Before Mrs. Walsingham’s brougham had moved on, he 


60 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


had promised to look in upon her that evening, and at tere 
o’clock he was seated in the familiar drawing-room, telling: 
her his domestic wrongs, and freely confessing that, his^ 
marriage had been a failure. Little by little she beguiled 
him into telling her these things, and played her part of 
adviser and consoler with exquisite tact, not once allowing: 
him to perceive the pleasure his confession afforded her. 
He spoke of his child without the faintest expression of 
affection, and laughed bitterly as he described his wife’s’ 
devotion to her infant. 

“ I thought as a woman of fashion she would have given 
herself very little trouble about the baby,” he said, “ but 
she continues to find time for maternal raptures in spite of 
her incessant visiting. I have told her that she is killing- 
herself, and the doctors tell her pretty much the same; but 
she will have her own way. ” 

“ She would suffer frightfully if the child were to die,”' 
said Mrs. AValsingham. 

“Suffer! Yes, I was thinking of that this afternoon 
when she was engaged in her baby worship. She would 
take my death coolly enough, I have no doubt; but I be- ' 
lieve the loss of that child would kill her. ” 

Long after Gilbert Sinclair had left her that night Clara. 
Walsingham sat brooding over all that he had told her upon 
the subject of his domestic life. 

“ And so he has found out what it is to have a wife who 
does not care for him,” she said to herself. “ He has grat- 
ified his fancy for a lovely face, and is paying a heavy price 
for his conquest. And I am to leave all my hopes of re- 
venge to James Wyatt, and am to reward his services by 
marrying him. No, no, Mr. Wyatt; it was all very well to 
promise that in the day of my despair. I see my way to 
something better than that now. The loss of her child 
would kill her, would it? And her death would bring^ 
Gilbert back to me, I think. His loveless marriage has- 
taught him the value of a woman’s affection.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE BEGINNING OF SORROW. 

Sir Cyprian did not again call at the house in Park 
Lane. He had heard of Constance Clanyarde’s marriage 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


61 


during his African travels, and had come back to England 
resolved to avoid her, as far as it was possible for him to do 
so. Time and absence had done little to lessen his love, but 
he resigned, himself to her marriage with another as an in- 
evitable fact, only regretting she had married a man of 
whom he had by no means an exalted opinion. James 
Wyatt was one of the first persons he visited on his arrival 
in London, and from him he heard a very unsatisfactory ac- 
count of the marriage. It was this that had induced him 
to break through his resolution and call in Park Lane. He 
wanted to see for himself whether Constance was obviously 
unhappy. He saw little, however, to enlighten him on this, 
point. He found the girl he had so fondly loved trans- 
formed into a perfect woman of the world; and he could 
draw no inference from her careless gayety of manner, ex- 
cept that James Wyatt had said more than was justified by 
the circumstances of the case. 

Instead of returning to Davenant for the autumn 
months, Mr. Sinclair chose this year to go to Germany, an 
extraordinary sacrifice of inclination, one might suppose, 
as his chief delight was to be found at English race meet- 
ings, and in the supervision of his stable at Newmarket. 

Mrs. Sinclair's doctor had recommended change of some 
kind as a cure for a certain lowness of tone and general de- 
rangement of the nervous system under which his patient 
labored. The medical man suggested Harrowgate or Bux- 
ton, or some Welsh water-drinking place; but when Gilbert 
proposed Schoenesthal, in the Black Forest, he caught at 
the idea. 

‘‘ Nothing would be better for Mrs. Sinclair and the 
baby,^^ he said; and you^ll be near Baden-Baden if yon 
want gayety. 

“ I donH care about brass bands and a lot of people,’^ an- 
swered Gilbert; “ I can shoot capercailzies. I shall get on 
well enough for a month or so.^' 

Constance had no objection to offer to this plan. She cared 
very little where her life was spent, so long as she had her 
child with her. A charming villa had been found half 
hidden among pine-trees, and here Mr. Sinclair established 
his wife, with a mixed household of English and foreign 
servants. She was very glad to be so completely withdrawn 
from the obligations of society, and to be able to devote 
herself almost entirely to the little girl, who was, of course. 


62 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


a paragon of infantine grace and intelligence in the eyes of 
mother and nurse. The nurse was a young woman belong- 
ing to the village near Marchbrook, one of the pupils of 
the Sunday-school, whom Constance had known from girl- 
hood. The nurse-maid who shared her duties in London 
had not been brought to Schoenesthal, but in her place Mrs. 
Sinclair engaged a French girl, with sharp dark eyes and a 
very intelligent manner. Martha Briggs, the nurse, was 
rather more renowned for honesty and good temper than 
for intellectual qualifications, and she seemed unusually 
slow and stolid in comparison with the vivacious French 
girl. This girl had come to Baden with a Parisian family, 
and had been dismissed with an excellent character upon 
the family^s departure for Vienna with a reduced staff. 
Her name was Melanie Duport, and she contrived very 
rapidly to ingratiate herself with her mistress, as she had 
done with the good priest of the little church she had at- 
tended during her residence at Baden, who was delighted 
with her artless fervor and unvarying piety. Poor Martha 
Briggs was rather inclined to be jealous of this new rival in 
her mistress’s favor, and derived considerable comfort from 
the fact that the baby did not take to Melanie. 

If the baby preferred her English nurse to Melanie, the 
little French girl, for her part, seemed passionately devoted 
to the baby. She was always eager to carry the child 
when the two nurses were out together, and resented 
Martha’s determination to deprive her of this pleasure. 
One day when the two were disputing together upon this 
subject, Martha bawling at the French girl under the pop- 
ular idea that she would make herself understood if she only 
talked loud enough, Melanie repeating her few words of ‘ 
broken English with many emphatic shrugs and frowns and 
nods, a lady stopped to listen to them and to admire the 
baby. She spoke in French to Melanie, and did not ad- 
dress Martha at all, much to that young person’s indigna- 
tion. She asked Melanie to whom the child belonged, and 
how long she had been with it, and whether she was accus- 
tomed to nursing children, adding, with a smile, that she 
looked rather too lady-like for a nurse-maid. 

Melanie was quite subdued by this compliment. She 
told the lady that this was the first time she had been 
nurse-maid. She had been lady’s-maid in her last sit- 
uation, and had preferred the place very much to her pres- 


WEAYEES AND WEFT. 


63 


ent position. She told this strange lady nothing about 
that rapturous affection for the baby which she was in the 
habit of expressing in Mrs. Sinclair^’s presence. She only 
told her how uncomfortable she had been made by the En- 
glish nurse’s jealousy. 

“ I am staying at the Hotel du Roi,” said the lady^ 
after talking to Melanie for some little time, “ and should 
like to see you if you can find time to call upon me some 
evening. 1 might be able to be of some use to you in find- 
ing a new situation when your present mistress leaves the 
neighborhood.” 

Melanie courtesied, and replied that she would make a 
point of waiting upon the lady, and then the two nurses 
moved on with their little charge. Martha asked Melanie 
what the foreign lady had been saying, and the French girl 
replied carelessly that she had only been praising the baby. 

“ And well she may,” answered Miss Briggs, rather 
snappishly, ‘‘for she’s the sweetest child that ever lived ; 
but for my own part, I don’t like foreigners, or any of 
their nasty, deceitful ways.” 

This rather invidious remark was lost upon Mile; Duport, 
who only understood a few words of English, and who cared 
very little for her fellow-servant’s opinion upon any sub- 
ject. 

In spite of Gilbert Sinclair’s protestation of indifference 
to the attractions of brass bands and crowded assemblies, 
he contrived to spend the greater part of his time at Baden, 
where the Goddess of Chance was still worshiped in the 
brilliant Kursaal, while his wife was left to drink her fill of 
forest beauty and that distant glory of inaccessible hills, 
which the sun dyed rosy red in the quiet even-tide. ' 

In these tranquil days, while her husband was waiting for 
the turn of Fortune’s wheel in the golden salon, or yawn- 
ing over “ Galignani in the reading-room, Constance’s 
life came far nearer happiness than she had ever dared to 
hope it could come, after her perjury at God’s altar two 
years ago. Many a time, while she was leading her butter- 
fly life in the flower-garden of fashion, making dissipation 
stand for pleasure, she had told herself, in some gloomy 
hour of reaction, that no good ever could come of her mar- 
riage; that there was a curse upon it, a righteous God’s 
anathema against falsehood. And then her baby had come, 
and she had shed her first happy tears over the sweet small 


64 


WEAVEES AND WEFT. 


face, the blue eyes looking up at her full of vague wonder, 
and she had thanked Heaven for this new bliss, and be- 
lieved her sin forgiven. After that time Gilbert had 
changed for the worse, and there had been many a polite 
passage at arms between husband and wife, and these en- 
counters, however courteously performed, are apt to leave 
ugly scars. 

But now, far away from all her frivolous acquaintance, 
free from the all-engrossing duties of a fine lady’s existence, 
she put all evil thoughts out of her mind, Gilbert among 
them, and abandoned herself wholly to the delight of the 
pine forest and baby. She was very gracious to .Gilbert 
when he chose to spend an hour or two at home, or to drive 
with her in the pretty little pony-carriage in which she 
made most of her explorations; but she made no complaint, 
she expressed no curiosity as to the manner in which he 
amused himself, or the company he kept at Baden-Baden, 
and though that center of gayety was only four miles off, 
she never expressed a wish to share in its amusements. 

Gilbert was not an agreeable companion at this time. 
That deep and suppressed resentment against his wife, like 
rancorous lago’s jealousy, did “gnaw him inward," and 
although his old passionate love still remained, it was curi- 
ously interwoven with hatred. 

Once when husband and wife were seated opposite each 
other, in the September twilight after one of their rare 
tete-a-tete dinners, Constance looked up suddenly and 
caught Gilbert’s brooding eyes fixed upon her face with an 
expression which made her shiver. 

“If you look at me like that, Gilbert,” she said, with a 
nervous laugh, “ I shall be afraid to drink this glass of 
Marcobrunner you’ve just poured out for me. There 
might be poison in it. I hope I have done nothing to de- 
serve such an angry look. Othello must have looked some- 
thing like that, I should think, when he asked Desdemona 
for the strawberry-spotted handkerchief. ’’ 

“ Why did you marry me, Constance?” asked Sinclair, 
ignoring his wife’s speech. 

There was something almost piteous in this question, 
wrung from a man who loved honesty, according to his 
lights, and whose love was turned to rancor by the knowl- 
edge that it had won no return. 

“What a question, after two years of married life! 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


65 


Why did I marry you.^ Because you wished me to marry 
you; aud because I believed you would make me a good 
husband, Gilbert; and because I had firmly resolved to 
make you a good wife.^"’ 

She said this earnestly, looking at him through unshed 
tears. Since her own life had become so much happier, 
since her baby's caresses had awakened all the dormant 
tenderness of her nature, she had felt more anxious to be 
on good terms with her husband. She would have taken 
much trouble, made some sacrifice of womanly pride, to 
win him back to that amiable state of mind she remem- 
bered in their honey-moon. 

“ I've promised to meet AVyatt at the Kursaal this even- 
ing," said Sinclair, looking at his watch as he rose from the 
table, and without the slightest notice of his wife's reply. 

“ Is Mr. Wyatt at Baden?" 

“ Yes; he has come over for a little amusement at the 
table — deuced lucky dog — always contrives to leave off a 
winner. One of these cool-headed fellows who know the 
turn of the tide. You've no objection to his being there, 
I suppose?" 

‘ ‘ I wish you and he were not such fast friends, Gilbert. 
Mr. Wyatt is no favorite of mine." 

‘‘ Isn't her Too much of the watch-dog about him, I 
suppose. As for fast friends, there's not much friend- 
ship between Wyatt and me. He's a useful fellow to have 
about one, that's all. He has served me faithfully, and 
has got well paid for his services. It's a matter of pounds, 
shillings, and pence on his side, and a matter of conveni- 
ence on mine. No doubt Wyatt knows that as well as I 
do." 

“ Don't you think friendship on such a basis may be 
rather an insecure bond?" said Constance, gravely; “ and 
that a man who can consent to profess friendship on such 
degrading terms is likely to be half an enemy?" 

‘‘ Oh, I don’t go in for such high-flown ethics. Jim 
Wyatt knows that it's his interest to serve me well, and 
that it's as much as his life is worth to play me false. Jim 
and I understand one another perfectly, Constance, you 
may be sure. " 

‘‘lam sure that he understands you," answered Con- 
stance. 


3 


66 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


But Gilbert was gone before she had finished her sen- 
tence. 

Baby, christened Christabel after the late Lady Clan- 
yarde, was nearly a twelvemonth old, and had arrived, in 
the opinion of mother and nurse, at the most interesting 
epoch of babyhood. Her tender cooings, her joyous 
chucklings, her pretty cluck-clucking noises, as of anxious 
maternal hens calling their offspring, her inarticulate lan- 
guage of broken syllables, which only maternal love could 
interpret, were an inexhaustible fountain of dehght. She 
was the blithest and happiest of babies, and every object in 
creation with which she became newly acquainted was a 
source of rapture to her. The flowers, the birds, the in- 
sect life of that balmy pine forest, filled her with delight. 
The soft blue eyes sparkled with pleasure, the rose-bud lips 
babbled her wordless wonder, the little feet danced with 
ecstasy. 

“ Oh,^^ cried the delighted mother, “if she would 
always be just like this, my plaything and my darling! Of 
course I shall love her just as dearly when she is older — a 
long-armed lanky girl in a brown holland pinafore, always 
inking her fingers and getting into trouble about her les- 
sons — like my sisters and me when we were in the school- 
room; but she can never be so pretty or so sweet again, can 
she, Martha?^ ^ 

“ Lor^ mum, she’ll always be a love,” replied the devoted 
nurse; “ and as for her arms being long and her fingers 
inky, you won’t love her a bit less — and I’m sure I hope 
she won’t be worried with too many lessons, for I do think 
great folks’ children are to be pitied, half their time cooped 
up in school-rooms, or stretched out on blackboards, or 
strumming on the piano, while poor children are running 
wild in the fields. ” 

“ Oh, Martha, how shocking,” cried Mrs. Sinclair, pre- 
tending to be horrified, “ to think that one of my favorite 
pupils should underrate the value of education!” 

“ Oh, no, indeed, ma’am, I have no such thought. I 
have often felt what a blessing it is to be able to read a 
good book and write a decent letter. But I never can 
think that life was meant to be all education.” 

“ Life is all education, Martha,” answered her mistress,, 
with a sigh, “ but not the education of grammars and dic- 
tionaries. The world is our school, and time our school- 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


67 


master. Ko, Martha, my Christabel shall not be harassed 
with too much learning. We won’t try to make her a para- 
gon. Her life shall be all happiness and freedom, and she 
shall grow up without the knowledge of care or evil, except 
tlie sorrows of others, and those she shall heal; and she 
shall marry the man she loves, whether he is rich or poor, 
for I am sure my sweet one would never love a bad man.” 

“ I don’t say that, ma’am,” reiterated Martha; ‘‘ looks 
are so deceiving. I’m sure there was my own cousin, on 
the father’s side, Susan Tadgers, married the handsomest 
young man in Marchbrook village, and before they’d been 
two years married he took to drinking, and was so neglect- 
ful of himself you wouldn’t have known him; and now 
she’s gone back to her friends; and his whiskers, that he 
used to take such a pride in, are all brown and shaggy, like 
a stray Scotch terrier. ” 

The day after that somewhat unpleasant Ute-a-Ute be- 
tween husband and wife, Gilbert Sinclair announced hiS in- 
tention of going back to England for the Leger. 

“ I have never missed a Leger,” he said, as if attendance 
at that race were a pious duty, like the Commination 
service on Ash- Wednesday, “ and I shouldn’t like to miss 
this race.” 

‘‘ Hadn’t we better go home at once, then, Gilbert? I 
am quite ready to return.” 

‘‘Nonsense. I’ve taken this place till the 20th of 
October, and shall have to pay pretty stiffly for it. I shall 
come back directly after the Doncaster.” 

“ But it will be a fatiguing journey for 3^011.” 

I’d just as soon be sitting in a railway train as any- 
where else. ” 

Does Mr. Wyatt go back with you?” 

No; Wyatt stays at Baden for the next week or so. 
He pretends to be here for the sake of the water, goes very 
little to the Kursaal, and lives quietly like a careful old 
bachelor who wished to mend a damaged constitution, but 
I should rather think he had some deeper game than water-, 
drinking.” 

Gilbert departed, and Constance was alone with her 
child. The weather was delightful — cloudless skies, balmy 
days, blissful weather for the grape gatherers on the vine- 
clad slopes that sheltered one side of this quaint old village 
of Schoenesthal. A river w^ound throiigh the valley, a 


68 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


deep and rapid stream narrowing in this cleft of the hills^ 
and utilized by some saw-mills in the outskirts of the vil~ 
lage, whence at certain seasons rafts of timber were floated 
down the Ehine. 

A romantic road following the course of this river was; 
one of Mrs. Sinclair's favorite drives. There were pict- 
uresque old villages and romantic ruins to be explored, and 
many lovely spots to be shown to baby, who, although in- 
articulate, was supposed to be appreciative. 

Upon the first day of Gilbert’s absence Martha Briggs; 
came home from her afternoon promenade with baby, 
looking flushed and tired, and complaining of sore throat. 
Constance was quick to take alarm. The poor girl was 
going to have a fever, perhaps, and must instantly be 
separated from baby. There was no medical man nearer 
than Baden, so Mrs. Sinclair sent the groom off at once to 
that town. She told him to inquire for the best English 
doctor in the place, or if there were no English practitioner 
at Baden, for the best German doctor. The moment she 
had given these directions, however, it struck her that the 
man who was not remarkable for intelligence out of his 
stable, was likely to lose time in making his inquiries, and 
perhaps get misdirected at last. 

“ Mr. Wyatt is at Baden, she thought; ‘‘ I dare say he 
would act kindly in such an extremity as this, though I 
have no opinion of his sincerity in a general way. Stop, 
Dawson, she said to the groom, “ Ifll give you a note for 
Mr. Wyatt, who is staying at the Badenscher Hof. He will 
direct you to the doctor. You will drive to Baden in the 
pony-carriage, and, if possible, bring the doctor back with 
yon."" 

Baby was transferred to the care of Melanie Dupor-t, who 
seemed full of sympathy and kindliness for her fellow-serv- 
ant, a sympathy which Martha Briggses surly British tem- 
per disdained. Mrs. Sinclair had Martha^s bed moved 
from the nursery into her own dressing-room, where she 
would be able herself to take care of the invalid. Melanie 
was ordered to keep strictly to her nursery, and on no ac- 
count to enter Martha"s room. 

“ But if Martha has a fever, and madame nurses her, this 
little angel may catch the fever from madame,^" suggested 
Melanie. 

“ If Martha "s illness is contagious I shall not nurse her,""' 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


69 


answered Constance. I can get a nursing sister from one 
of the convents. But I like to have the poor girl near me^ 
that, at the worst, she may know she is not deserted. 

‘‘Ah, but madame is too good! What happiness to 
serve so kind a mistress!” 

Mr. Wyatt showed himself most benevolently anxious to 
be useful on receipt of Mrs. Sinclair’s note. He made all 
necessary inquiries at the office of the hotel, and having 
found out the name of the best doctor in Baden, took the 
trouble to accompany the groom to the medical man’s 
house, and waited until Mr. Paulton, the English surgeon,, 
was seated in the pony-carriage. 

“ I shall be anxious to know if Mrs. Sinclair’s nurse is 
seriously ill,” said Mr. Wyatt, while the groom was taking- 
his seat. “ I shall take the liberty to call and inquire in 
the course of the evening. ” 

“ Delighted to give you any information,” replied Mr* 
Paulton, graciously; “I’ll send you a line if you like* 
Where are you staying?” 

“ At the Badenscher.” 

“You shall know how the young woman is directly I get 
back.” 

“ A thousand thanks. ” 


CHAPTER X. 

THE CRUEL RIVER. 

Mrs. Sinclair’s precaution had been in no wise futile. 
Mr. Paulton pronounced that Martha’s symptoms pointed 
only too plainly to some kind of fever — possibly scarlet 
fever — possibly typhoid. In any case there could not bo 
too much care taken to guard against contagion. The 
villa was airy and spacious, and Mrs. Sinclair’s dressing- 
room at- some distance from the nursery. There would bo 
no necessity, therefore, Mr. Paulton said, for the removal 
of the child to another house. He would send a nursing- 
sister from Baden — an experienced woman — to whose caro 
the sick-room might be safely confided. 

The sister came — a middle-aged woman — in the somber 
garb of her order, but with a pleasant, cheerful face, that 
well became her snow-white head-gear. She showed her- 
self kind and dexterous in nursing the sick girl, but before 


70 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


she had been three days in the house, Martha, who was 
now in a ragingfever, took a dislike to the nurse, and raved 
wildly about this black-robed figure at her bedside. In 
vain did the sister endeavor to reassure her. To the girFs 
wandering wits that foreign tongue seemed like the gibber- 
ish of some unholy goblin. She shrieked for help, and 
Mrs. Sinclair ran in from the adjoining room to see what 
was amiss. Martha was calmed and comforted immediately 
by the sight of her mistress; and from that time Constance 
devoted herself to the sick-room, and shared the nurse’s 
watch. 

This meant separation from Christabel, and that was a 
hard trial for the mother, who had never yet lived a day 
xipart from her child; but Constance bore this bravely for 
the sake of the faithful girl — too thankful that her darling 
had escaped the fever which had so strangely stricken the 
nurse. The weather continued glorious, and baby seemed 
quite happy with Melanie, who roamed about with her 
charge all day, or went for long drives in the pony-carriage 
under the care of the faithful Dawson, who was a pattern 
of sobriety and steadiness, and incapable of flirtation. 

Mr. Wyatt rode over from Baden every other day to in- 
quire about the nurse’s progress — an inquiry which he 
might just as easily have made of the doctor in Baden — 
and this exhibition of good feeling on his part induced Con- 
stance to think that she had been mistaken in her estimate 
of his character. 

‘‘ The Gosp'el says ‘ Judge not,’ ” she thought, “ and yet 
we are always sitting in judgment upon one another. Per- 
haps, after all, Mr. Wyatt is as kind-hearted as his admir- 
ers think him, and I have done wrong in being prejudiced 
against him. He was Cyprian’s friend too, and always 
speaks of him with particular affection.” 

Constance remembered that scene in the morning-room 
at Davenant. It was one of those unpleasant memories 
which do not grow fainter with the passage of years. She 
had been inclined to suspect James W^yatt of a malicious 
intention in his sudden announcement of Sir Cyprian’s 
death — the wish to let her husband see how strong a hold 
her first love still had upon her heart. He, who had been 
Cyprian Davenant’s friend and confidant, was likely to have 
known something of that early attachment, or at least to 
have formed a shrewd guess at the truth. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


71 


“ Perliaps I have suspected him wrongly in that affair/^' 
Constance thought, now that she was disposed to think more 
kindly of Mr. Wyatt. ‘‘ His mention of Sir Cyprian might 
have been purely accidental.^' 

Four or five times in every day Melanie Duport brought 
the baby Christabel to the grass-plot under the window of 
Mrs. Sinclair's* bedroom, and there were tender greetings 
between mother and child, baby struggling in nurse's grasp 
and holding up her chubby arms as if she would fain have 
embraced her mother even at that distance. These inter- 
views were a sorry substitute for the long happy hours of 
closest companionship which mother and child had enjoyed 
at Schcenesthal, but Constance bore the trial bravely. The^ 
patient was going on wonderfully well, Mr. Paul ton said;: 
the violence of the fever was considerably abated. It had 
proved a light attack of scarlet fever, and not typhoid, as 
the doctor had feared it might have proved. In a week 
the patient would most likely be on the high-road of recov- 
ery, and then Mrs. Sinclair could leave her entirely to the 
sister's care, since poor Martha was now restored to her 
right mind, and was quite reconciled to that trustworthy 
attendant. 

“And then," said Mr. Paulton, “I shall send you to- 
Baden for a few days, before you go back to baby, and you 
must put aside all clothes that you have worn in the sick- 
room, aRd I think we shall escape all risk of infection." 

This was a good hearing. Constance languished for the- 
happy hour when she should be able to clasp that rosy bab- 
bling child to her breast once more. Mademoiselle Duport 
had been a marvel of goodness throughout this anxious 
time. 

“I shall never forget how good and thoughtful you 
have been, Melanie," said Constance, from her window, m 
the French girl stood in the garden below, holding baby up 
to be adored before setting out for her morning ramble. 

“ But it is a pleasure to serve madame," shrieked 
Melanie, in her shrill treble. 

“ Monsieur returns this evening," said Constance, who 
had just received a hurried scrawl from Gilbert, naming tho 
hour of his arrival; “you must take care that Christabel 
looks the prettiest." 

“ Ah, but she is always ravishingly pretty. If she wero 
only a boy, monsieur would idolize her. " 


72 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


Where are you going this morning, Melanie 

‘‘ To the rained castle on the hill. 

“ Do you think that is a safe place for baby?^^ 

“ What could there be safer? What peril can madame 
loresee?^^ 

“No,’’ said Constance, with a sigh. “ I suppose she 
is as safe there as anywhere else, but I am always uneasy 
when she is away from me.” 

“ But madame’s love for this little one is a passion!” 

Melanie departed with her charge, and Constance went 
hack to the sick-room to attend to her patient while the 
sister enjoyed a few hours of comfortable sleep. 

One o’clock was Christabel’s dinner-time, and Christa- 
bel’s dinner was a business of no small importance in the 
mother’s mind. One o’clock came, and there was no sign 
of Melanie and her charge, a curious thing, as Melanie was 
methodical and punctual to a praiseworthy degree, and 
was provided with a neat little silver watch to keep her 
acquainted with the time. 

Two o’clock struck, and still no Melanie. Constance 
began to grow uneasy, and sent scouts to look for the nurse 
and child. But when three o’clock came and baby had not 
yet appeared, Constance became seriously alarmed, and put 
on her hat hastily, and went out to search for the missing 
nurse. She would not listen to the servants who had just 
returned from their fruitless quest, and who begged her to 
let them go in fresh directions while she waited the result 
at home. 


“No,” she said, “ I could not rest. I must go myself. 
Send to the police, any one, the proper authorities. Tell 
them my child is lost. Let them send in every direction. 
Ton have been to the ruins?” 

“ Yes, ma’am.” 

“ And there was no one there? You could hear noth- 


ing 

“ No, ma’am,” answered Dawson the groom; “ the 
place was quite lonesome. There was nothing but grass- 
noppers chirping.” 

“ The river!” thought Constance, white with horror; 
* ‘ the ruins are only a little way from the river. ” 

She ran along the romantic pathway which followed the 
river-bank for about half a mile, and there ascended the 
steep hill on the slope of which stood the battered old shell 


WEAVEKS AKD WEFT. 


73: 


which had once been a feudal castle, with dungeons beneath, 
its stately halls, and a deep and secret well for the safe put- 
ting away of troublesome enemies. Very peaceful looked 
the old ruins on this balmy September day, in the mellow 
afternoon sunshine, solitary, silent, deserted. There was 
no trace of nurse or child in the grassy court or on the- 
crumbling old rampart. Yes, just where the rampart 
looked down upon the river, just at that point where the^ 
short sunburned grass sloped deepest, Constance Sinclair 
found a token of her child’s presence, a toy dog, white,, 
fleecy, and deliciously untrue to nature — an animal whos& 
shapeless beauty had been the. baby Christabel’s delight. 

Constance gave a little cry of joy. 

“ They have been here, they are somewhere near,” she- 
thought, and then, suddenly, in the sweet summer stillness 
the peril of this particular spot struck her — that steep de- 
scent — the sunburned sward, slippery as glass — the deep,, 
swift current below — the utter loneliness of the scene — no 
help at hand. 

“ Oh, God!” she cried, ‘‘ the river, the river!” 

She looked round her with wild, beseeching eyes, as if 
she would have asked all nature to help her in this great 
agony. There was no one within sight. The nearest house 
was a cottage on the bank of the river, about a hundred 
yards from the bottom of the slope. A narrow foot-path, 
at the other end of the rampart led to the bank, and by this 
path Constance hurried down to make inquiries at the cot- 
tage. 

The door was standing open, and there was a noise of 
several voices within. Some one was lying on a bed in a 
corner, and a group of peasant women were round her 
ejaculating compassionately. 

Das arms madchen, Ach, Himmel ! Was gibt esV* 
and a good deal more of a spasmodic and sympathetic nat- 
ure. A woman’s garments, dripping wet, were hanging in 
front of the stove, beside which sat an^ elderly vine-dresser 
with stolid countenance smoking his pipe. 

Constance Sinclair put the woman aside and made her 
way to the bed. It was Melanie who lay there wrapped in 
a blanket, sobbing hysterically. 

, “ Melanie, where is my child?” 

1 The girl shrieked and turned her face to the wall. 

'' She risked her life to save it,” said the man in Ger- 


74 


WEAVERS AI^D WEFT. 


man. “ The current is very rapid under the old Schloss. 
She plunged in after the baby. I found her, in the water, 
obliging to the branch of a willow. If I had been a little 
later slie would have been drowned. 

“ And the child — my child 

Acli, mein OottV’ exclaimed the man, with a shrug. 

No one has seen the poor child. No one knows. 

“ My child is drowned!^^ 

“ Liele Frau” said one of the women, “ the current is 
strong. The little one was at play on the rampart. ^Its 
foot slipped, and it rolled down the hill into the water. 
This good girl ran down after it, and jumped into the 
•water. My husband found’ her there. She tried to save 
the child, she could do no more. But the current was too 
strong. Dear lady, be comforted. The good God will 
help you.^^ 

“ No, God is cruel, cried Constance. I will never 
serve Him or believe in Him any more.^^ 

And with this blasphemy, wrung from her tortured 
heart, a great wave of blood seemed to rush over Constance 
Sinclair's brain, and she fell senseless on the stone floor. 


CHAPTER XL 

GETTING OVER IT. 

Babv Christabel was drowned. Of that fact there could 
be no shadow of doubt in the minds of those who had loved 
her, although the sullen stream which had swallowed her 
lovely form refused to give it back. Perchance the loreleis 
had taken her for their playfellow, and transformed her 
mortal beauty into something rich and strange. 

Anyhow, the nets that dragged the river-bed did not 
bring up the golden hair, or the sad drowned eyes that once 
danced with joyous life. And if anything could add to 
Constance Sinclair's grief it was this last drop of bitterness 
■ — the knowledge that her child would never rest in hal- 
lowed ground, that there was no quiet grave on which to 
lay her aching head and feel nearer her darling, no spot of 
■earth to which she could press her lips and fancy she could 
be heard by the little one lying in her pure shroud below, 
.asleep on Mother Earth^s calm breast. 


WEAYEKS AKD WEFT. 75 

No, her little one was driven by winds and waves, and 
had no resting-place under the weary stars. 

Melanie Duport, when she recovered from the horror of 
that one dreadful day, told her story clearly enough. It 
was the same story she had told the peasant woman whoso 
husband rescued her. Baby Christabel was playing on tho 
rampart, Melanie holding her securely, as she believed, 
when the little one, attracted by the flight of a butterfly, 
made a sudden spring — alas! madame knevy not how strong- 
and active the dear angel was, and how difficult it was to 
hold her sometimes — and slipped out of Melanie^s arms on 
to the rampart, and from the rampart — which was very 
low just there, as madame might have observed — on to tho 
grass, and rolled and rolled down to the river. It was all 
quick as thought; one moment and that angeBs white 
frock was floating on the stream. Melanie tore down, she 
knew not how; it was as if Heaven had given her wings in 
that moment. The white frock was still floating. Melanie 
plunged into the river; ah! but what was her life at such a 
timer — a nothing. Alas! she tried to grasp the frock, but 
the stream swept it from her; an instant, and one saw ifc 
no more. She felt herself sinking, and then she fainted^ 
She knew nothing till she woke in the cottage where ma- 
dame found her. 

Melanie was a heroine in a small way after this sad 
event. The villagers thought her a wonderful young per- 
son. Her master rewarded her handsomely, and promised 
to retain her in his service till she should choose to marry. 
Her mistress was as grateful as despair can be for any serv- 
ice. 

The light of Constance Sinclair's life had gone. Her 
one source of joy was turned to a fountain of bitterness. 
A dull and blank despair took possession of her. She did 
not succumb utterly to her grief. She struggled against it 
bravely, and she would accept no one^s compassion or sym- 
pathy. One of her married sisters, a comfortable matron 
with half a dozen healthy children in her nursery, offered 
to come and stay with Mrs. Sinclair; but this kindly offer 
was refused almost uncivilly. 

What good could you do me?^^ asked Constance. If 
you spoke to me of my darling I should hate you, yet I 
should always be thinking of her. Do you suppose you 
could comfort me by telling about your herd of children. 


76 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


or by repeating little bits of Scripture, such as people quote 
ill letters of condolence? No; there is no such thing as 
comfort for my grief. I like to sit alone and think of my 
pet, and be wretched in my own way. Con^t be angry 
with me, dear, for writing so savagely. I sometimes feel 
as if I hated every one in the world, but happy mothers 
most of all. 

Gilbert Sinclair endured the loss of his little girl with a 
certain amount of philosophy. In the first place she was 
not a boy, and had offended him ab initio by that demerit. 
She had been a pretty little darling, no doubt, and he had 
had his moments of fondness for her; but his wife^s idolatry 
of the child was an offense that had rankled deep. He had 
been jealous of his infant daughter. He put on mourning, 
and expressed himself deeply afflicted, but his burden did 
not press heavily. A boy would come, perhaps, by and %, 
and make amends for this present loss, and Constance 
would begin her baby worship again. 

Mr. Sinclair did not know that for some hearts there is 
no beginning again. 

Martha Briggs recovered health and strength, but her 
grief for the lost baby was very genuine and unmistakable. 
Constance offered to keep her in her service, but this favor 
Martha declined with tears. 

“ No, ma^am, it^s best for both that we should part. I 
should remind you of ” — here a burst of sobs supplied the 
missing name — “ and you’d remind me. I’ll go home. 
I’m more grateful than words can say for all your good- 
ness; but, oh, I hate myself so for being ill. I never, 
never shall forgive myself — never. ” 

So Martha went back to Davenant in her mistress’s train, 
and there parted with her to return to the paternal roof, 
which was not very far off. It was not so with Melanie. 
She only clung to her mistress more devotedly after the loss 
of the baby. If her dear lady would but let her remain 
with her as her own maid, she would be beyond measure 
liappy. Was not hair-dressing the art in whiqh she most 
delighted, and millineiy the natural bent of her mind? 
Gilbert said the girl had acted nobl^, and ought to be re- 
tained in his wife’s service; so Constance, whose Abigail 
lately left her to better herself by marriage with an as- 
piring butler, consented to keep Melanie as her personal 
attendant. She did this, believing with Gilbert that the 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


77 


girl deserved recompense; but Melanie^s presence was full 
of painful associations, and kept the bitter memory of her 
lost child continually before her. 

Constance went back to Davenant, and life flowed on in 
its slow and sullen course somehow without Baby Christa- 
bel. The two rooms that had been nurseries — two of the 
prettiest rooms in the big old house, with French windows 
and a wide balcony, with a flight of steps leading down to 
the quaintest old garden, shut in from the rest of the 
grounds by a holly hedge — now became temples dedicated 
to the lost. In these rooms Constance spent all the time 
she could call her own. But the business of life still went 
on, and ^ there was a great deal of time she could not call 
her own. Gilbert, having dismissed the memory of his lost 
child to the limbo of unpleasant recollections, resented his 
wife^s brooding grief as a personal injury, and was deter- 
mined to give that sullen sorrow no indulgence. When 
the hunting season was at its best, and pheasant-shooting 
made one of the attractions of Davenant, Mr. Sinclair de- 
termined to fill his house with his own particular set — 
horsy men — men who gave their minds to guns and dogs, 
and rarely opened their mouths for speech except to relate 
an anecdote about an accomplished setter, or “ liver-colored 
pointer of mine, you know,^^ or to dilate upon the noble 
behavior of ‘‘ that central fire Lancaster of mine in yes- 
terday’s battue — men who devoted their nights and days to 
billiards, and whose conversation was of breaks and flukes, 
pockets and cannons. 

“ You'd better ask some women, Constance," said Gil- 
bert, one Sunday morning in November, as they sat at 
their tete-a-tete breakfast, the wife reading her budget of 
letters, the husband with the “ Field "propped up in front 
of his coffee-cup, and the Sporting Gazette" at his 
elbow. ‘‘I've got a lot of men coming next week, and 
you might feel yourself de trop in a masculine party." 

“ Have you asked people, Gilbert, so soon?" said Con- 
stance, reproachfully. 

“ I don't know what you call soon. The pheasants are 
as wild as they can be, and Lord Highover's hounds have 
been out nearly a month. You'd better ask some nice 
young women — the right sort, you know; no nonsense about 
them." 

“ I thought we should have spent this winter quietly. 


78 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


Gilbert/^ said Constance, in a low voice, looking down afe 
her black dress with its deep folds of crape; “ jiist this one 
winter. 

“ That^s sheer sentimentality,^^ exclaimed Gilbert, giv- 
ing the “ Field an impatient twist as he folded it to get 
at his favorite column. ‘‘ What good would it do you or 
me to shut ourselves up in this dismal old house like a pair 
of superannuated owls? AVould it bring back the poor lit- 
tle thing we've lost, or make her happier in Paradise? No,. 
Constance. She's happ3^ ‘ Nothing can touch her more,'^ 
as Milton, or somebody, says. Egad, I think the poor lit- 
tle darling is to be envied for having escaped all the 
troubles and worries of life; for life at best is a bad book; 
you can't hedge everything. Don't cry, Constance. That 
long face of yours is enough to send a fellow into an un- 
timely grave. Let us get a lot of pleasant people round 
us, and make the most of this place while it's ours. We 
mayn't have it always." 

This sinister remark fell upon an unheeding ear. Con- 
stance Sinclair's thoughts had wandered far away from that 
oak-paneled breakfast-room. They had gone back to the 
sunny hill* side, the grassy rampart, the swift and fatal 
river, the bright landscape which had stamped itself upon 
her memory indelibly, in the one agonized moment in which 
she had divined her darling's fate. 

“ Gilbert, I reallyam not fit to receive people," she said, 
after a silence of some minutes, during which Mr. Sinclair 
had amused himself by sundry adventurous dips of his 
fork, like an old Jewish priest's dive into the sacred seeth- 
ing-pot, into the crockery case of a Perigord pie. “ If you 
have set your heart upon having your friends this winter 
you had better let me go away, to Hastings or somewhere. 
It would be pleasanter for you to be free from the sight of 
my unhappiness." 

‘‘Yes, and for you to find consolation elsewhere, no 
doubt. You would pretty soon find a consoler if I gave 
you your liberty." 

“ Gilbert!" 

“ Oh, don't think to frighten me with your indignant 
looks. I have not forgotten the scene in this room when 
you heard of your old lover's supposed death. Sir Cyprian 
Davenant is in London, in high feather too, I understand; 
for some ancient relation of his has been obliging enough 


WEAVERS AITD WEFT. 


79 


to die and leave him another fortune. A pity you didn^t 
wait a little longer, isn^t it? A pity your father should 
have been in such a hurry to make his last matrimonial 
bargain. 

Gilbert!^’ cried Constance, passionately, what have 
I ever done that you should dare to talk to me like this? 
How have I ever failed in my duty to you?^^ 

“ Shall I tell you? I won^t say that, having accepted 
me for your husbaud, you ought to have loved me. That 
would be asking too much. The ethics of the nineteenth 
century donT soar so high as that. But you might have 
pretended to care for me just a little. It would have been 
only civil, and it would have made the wheels of life go 
smoother for both of us. ” 

‘‘I am not capable of pretending, Gilbert,” answered 
Constance, gravely. “ If you would only be a little more 
considerate, and give me credit for being what I am, your 
true and dutiful wife, I might give you as much affection 
as the most exacting husband could desire. I would, Gil- 
bert,” she cried, in a voice choked by sobs, ‘‘ for the sake 
of our dead child.” 

‘‘Don’t humbug,” said Gilbert, sulkily. “We ought 
to understand each other by this time. As for running 
away from this house, or any other house of mine, to mope 
in solitude, or to find consolation among old friends, please 
comprehend that if you leave my house once you leave it 
forever. I shall expect to see you at the head of my table. 

I shall expect you to surround yourself with pretty women. 

I shall expect you to be a wife that a fellow may be proud 
of.” 

“ I shall do my best to oblige you, Gilbert; but perhaps 
I might have been a better wife if you had let me take life 
my own way.” 

From that time Constance Sinclair put aside all outward 
token of her grief. She wrote to the gayest and most pleas- 
ure-loving of her acquaintances — young married women, 
whose chief delight was to dress more expensively than 
their dearest friends, and to be seen at three parties on the 
same evening, and a few who were still spinsters, from no 
fault or foolishness of their own, since they had neglected 
neither pains nor art in the endeavor to secure an eligible 
partner for the dance of life. To these Constance wrote 


80 


WEAYEKS AND WEFT. 


her letters of invitation, and the first sentence in each let- 
ter was sufficient to insure an acceptance. 

‘‘ Deakest Ida, — My husband is filling the house with 
men for the hunting season. Do come, and save me from 
being bored to death by their sporting talk. Be sure to 
bring your hunting-habit. Gilbert can give you a good 
mount, etc., etc. 

Whereupon dearest Ida, twisting about the little note,, 
meditatively remarked to her last bosom-friend and confi- 
dante, ‘‘ Odd that they should ask people so soon after the 
death of Mrs. Sinclair's baby — drowned too — it was in all 
the papers. Davenant is a sweet house to stay at, quite 
liberty hall. Yet, I think I shall go, and if there are 
plenty of people I can finish out my ball dresses in the even- 
ings. 

Before another Sunday came Davenant was full of peo- 
ple, the attics noisy with strange lady^s-maids, the stables 
and harness-rooms full of life and bustle, not an empty 
stall or an unoccupied loose box in the long range of build- 
ings, the billiard -room and smoking-room resonant with, 
masculine laughter, unknown dogs pervading the out- 
buildings and chained up in every available corner. 

Constance Sinclair had put away her somber robes of 
crape and cashmere, and met her friends with welcoming 
smiles, radiant in black silk and lace, her graceful figure 
set off by the latest Parisian fashion, which, being the new- 
est, was, of course, infinitely the best. 

“ I thought she would have been in deeper mourning,^^ 
said one of Mrs. Sinclair's dearest friends to another dur- 
ing a whispered chat in a dusky corner at afternoon tea. 
“ The men were so noisy with their haw-haw talk, one 
could say what one liked,^^ remarked Mrs. Millamount 
afterward to Lady Loveall. 

“ Looks rather heartless, doesn’t it? — an only child too. 
She might at least wear paramatta instead of that black 
silk — not even a mourning silk. I suppose t^t black net 
trimmed with jet she wore last night was from Worth.” 

“ My dear, you couldn’t have looked at it properly. 
Worth wouldn’t have made her such a thing if she had 
gone down on her knees to him. The sleeve was positively 
antediluvian. !Nice house, isn’t it? — everything good style. 
What matches all these Clanyardes have made!” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


81 


‘‘Is it true that she was engaged to Sir Cyprian Dave- 
nantr^' 

“ They say so. How sorry she must be! He has just 
come into quite a heap of money. Some old man down iii 
the Lincolnshire fens left it him — quite a character, I be- 
lieve. Never spent anything except on black-letter books,, 
and those have been sold for a fortune at Sotheby^s. Ah,. 
Mr. Wyatt, how d^ye do?^’ as the solicitor, newly arrived 
that afternoon, threaded his way toward the quiet corner; 
“ do come and sit here. You always know everything. 
Is it true that Sir Cyprian Davenant has come into a fort- 
une 

“ Nothing can be more true, unless it is that Mrs. Milla- 
mount looks younger and lovelier every season. 

“ You horrid flatterer. You are worse than a French 
milliner. And is it true that Mrs. Sinclair and Sir Cyprian 
were engaged? But no, it would be hardly fair to ask you 
about that. You are a friend of the family. 

“ As a friend of the family I am bound to inform you 
that rumor is false on that point. There was no engage- 
ment. 

“ Really, now?^" 

“ But Sir Cyprian was madly in love with Miss Clan- 
yarde. ” 

“And she— 

“ I was not in the lady^s confidence; but I believe that 
it was only my friend ^s poverty which prevented their mar- 
riage.’’ 

“How horridly mercenary!” cried Mrs. Millamount, 
who came of an ancient Irish family, proud as Lucifer and 
poor as Lazarus, and had been sacrificed in the blossom of 
her days, like Iphigenia, to raise the wind — not to Diana, 
but to a rich stock-broker. Perhaps as that was a long 
time ago she may have forgotten how much more Plutus 
had had to do with her marriage than Cupid. 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE SHACKLES OF AN OLD LOVE STRAITENED HIM. 

Cyprian Davenant had inherited a fortune. Common 
rumor had not greatly exaggerated the amount of his wealth, 
though there was the usual disposition to expatiate upon 


WEAVERS AXD WEFT. 


the truth. Needy men looked at him with envy as he 
went in and out of his club, or sat in a quiet corner read- 
ing the last “ Quarterly or ‘‘ Edinburgh/^ and almost 
wondered that he was so well able to contain his spirits, 
and was not tempted to perform a savage dance of the 
Choctaw character, or to give expression to his rapture in a 
war-whoop. 

“ Hang it all, you know,^^ remarked an impecunious 
younger son, “ it aggravates a fellow to see Havenant take 
things so quietly. He doesn^t even look cheerful. He 
doesn^t invite the confidence of his necessitous friends. 
Such a knight of the rueful countenance would hardly 
stand a pony. And he wonH play whist, or touch a billiard 
cue — quite an unapproachable beast. 

A man can not be lucky in all things. Sir Cyprian had 
set his life upon a cast, and the fortune of the game had 
been against him. The inheritance of this unexpected 
wealth seemed to him almost a useless and trivial stroke of 
fate. What could it avail him now? It could not give 
him Constance Clanyarde, or even restore the good old 
house in which his father and mother had lived and died. 
Time had set a gulf between him and happiness, and the 
fortune that came too late seemed rather the stroke of some 
mocking and ironical Fate than the gift of a benevolent 
destiny. He came back from Africa like a man who lives 
a charmed life, escaping all manner of perils, from the 
gripe of marsh fever to the jaws of crocodiles; while men 
who had valued existence a great deal more than he had 
done had succumbed and left their bones to bleach upon 
the sands of the Gold Coast, or to rot in a stagnant swamp. 
Cyprian Davenant had returned to find the girl he loved 
the wife of the man he most disliked. He heard of her 
marriage more in sorrow than in anger. He had not ex- 
pected to find her free. His knowledge of Lord Clan- 
yarde^s character had assured him that his lordship’s 
beautiful daughter would be made to marry well. No fair 
Circassian, reared by admiring and expectant relatives in the 
seclusion of her Caucasian home, fattened upon milk and 
almonds to the standard of Oriental beauty, and in due 
course to be carried to the slave-market, had ever been 
brought up with a more specific intention than that which 
had ruled Lord Clanyarde in the education of his daugh- 
ters. They had all done well. He spent very little of his 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


83 


time at Marclibrook nowadays, his wife having died shortly 
after Constance’s marriage, but dawdled away life agree- 
ably at his daughters’ winter houses out of the season, at 
his clubs in the season, and felt that his mission had been 
accomplished. No father had ever done more for his chil- 
dren, and they had cost him very little. What a comfort 
to have been blessed with lovely marriageable daughters, 
instead of lubberly sons, squatting on a father’s shoulders 
like the old man of the mountain, thought Lord Clanyarde, 
when he had leisure to reflect upon his lot. 

After that one visit in Park Lane, Sir Cyprian Davenant 
had studiously avoided Mrs. Sinclair. He had very little 
inclination for society, and although his friends were ready 
to make a fashionable lion of him upon the strength of his 
African explorations, he had strength of mind enough to 
refuse all manner of flattering invitations, and innumera- 
ble introductions to people who were dying to know him. ; 

He took a set of chambers in one of the streets between 
the Strand and the river, surrounded himself with the 
books he loved, and set about writing the history of his 
travels. He had no desire to achieve fame by book-mak- 
ing, but a man must do something with his life. Sir Cyp- 
rian felt himself too old or too unambitious to enter one of 
the learned professions; and he felt himself without motive 
for sustained industry. He had an income that sufiiced for 
all his desires. He would write his book, tell the world the 
wonders he had seen, and then go back to Africa and see 
more wonders, and perhaps leave his bones along the road, 
as some of his felJow-travelers had done. 

He heard of Constance Sinclair — heard of her as one of 
the lights in fashion’s sidereal system — holding her own 
against all competitors. He saw her once or twice, be- 
tween five and six on a June afternoon, when the carriages 
were creeping along the Lady’s Mile, and the high-mettled 
horses champing their bits and tugging at their bearing- 
reins in sheer desperation at being compelled to this snail’s 
pace. He saw her looking her loveliest, and concluded 
that she was happy. She had all things that were reck- 
oned good in her world. Why should he suppose there was 
anything wanting to her content? 

The lawyer’s letter which told him of old Colonel 
Gryffin’s death, and the will which bequeathed to him the 


84 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


bulk of the old man^s fortune, found Sir Cyprian in his 
quiet chambers near the river, smoking the cigar of peace 
over the last new treatise on metaphysics by a German phi- 
losopher. Lady Davenant had been a Miss Gryfiin, and 
the favorite niece of this ancient Anglo-Indian, Colonel 
Gryffin, who had lived and died a bachelor. Sir Cyprian 
had a faint recollection of seeing a testy old gentleman wdth 
a yellow complexion at Davenant in his nursery days, and 
having been told to call the old gentleman “ uncle, 
whereupon he had revolted openly, and had declined to 
confer that honor upon such a wizened and tawny-com- 
plexioned anatomy as the little old gentleman in question. 

“ My uncles are big,'^ he said. ‘‘ You^re too little for 
an uncle. 

Soon afterward the queer old figure had melted out of 
the home picture. Colonel Gryffin had gone back to the 
Lincolnshire fens, and his ancient missals and incunabula, 
and had lived so remote an existence that the chief feeling 
caused by his death was astonishment at the discovery that 
he had been so long alive. 

Messrs. Dott & Gowunn, a respectable firm of family 
solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn, begged to inform Sir Cyprian 
Davenant that his great-uncle, on the maternal side. 
Colonel Gryffin, of Hobart Hall, near Hammerfield, Lin- 
colnshire, had appointed him residuary legatee and sole ex- 
ecutor to his will. Sir Cyprian was quite unmoved by the 
announcement. Residuary legatee might mean a great 
deal, or it might mean very little. He had a misty recol- 
lection of being told that Colonel Gryffin was rich, and was 
supposed to squander untold sums on Guttenberg Bibles, 
and other amiable eccentricities of a bookish man. He had 
never been taught to expect any inheritance from this an- 
cient bachelor, and he supposed him for many years laid 
at rest under the daisies of his parish church-yard. 

The residuary legateeship turned out to be a very hand- 
some fortune. The missals and Bibles and antique Books 
of Hours, the Decameron, and the fine old Shakespeare, 
were put up to auction— by desire of the testator — and were 
sold for twice and three times the sums the old colonel had 
paid for them. In a word. Sir Cyprian Davenant, who had 
esteemed himself passing rich upon four hundred a year, 
stood possessed of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. 

It came too late to buy him the desire of his heart, and. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


85 


not being able to win for him this one blessing, it seemed 
almost useless. 

James Wyatt was one of the first to congratulate Sir 
Cyprian upon this change of fortune. 

“ A pity the old gentleman did not die before you went 
to Africa, he said, sympathetically. “ It would have 
squared things for you and Miss Clanyarde."’^ 

“ Miss Clanyarde made a very good marriage,^^ answered 
Cyprian, too proud to bare his old wound even to friendly 
James Wyatt. “ She is happy. 

Mr. Wyatt shrugged. his shoulders dubiously. 

‘‘ Who knows?” he said. “ We see our friends’ lives from 
the outside, and, like a show at a fair, the outside is always 
the best part of the performance.” 

This happened while Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were at 
Schcenesthal. Soon came the tidings of Baby ChristabeTs 
fate, briefly told in a newspaper paragraph, and Cyprian 
Davenant’s heart bled for the woman he had once loved. 
He was not a little surprised when James Wyatt called 
upon him one day in November, and told him he was go- 
ing down to Davenant, where there was to be a houseful 
of company. 

“ So soon after the little girl’s death!” exclaimed Sir 



Yes, it is rather soon, no doubt. But they would be 
moped to death at Davenant without people. Sack-cloth 
and ashes are quite out of fashion, you see. People don’t 
go in for intense mourning nowadays.” 

‘‘ People have hearts, I suppose, even in the nineteenth 
century,” said Sir Cyprian, somewhat bitterly. I should 
have thought Mrs. Sinclair would have felt the loss of her 
little girl very .deeply.” 

“We don’t know what she may feel,” returned Wyatt. 

Gilbert likes his own way.” 

“You don’t mean to say that he ill-uses his wife?” 
asked Sir Cyprian, alarmed. 

“Ill-usage is a big word. We don’t employ it nowa- 
days,” replied Mr. Wyatt, with his imperturbable smile. 
“ Gilbert Sinclair k my client, and an excellent one, as you 
know. It would ill become me to disparage him, but I 
must admit that he and Mrs. Sinclair are not the happiest 
couple whose domestic hearth I have ever sat by. She had 
some secret grief even before the death of her child and 


86 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


made up for being very brilliant in society by being exceed- 
ingly dull at home. I don^t expect to find her very lively 
now that she has lost the only being she really cared for. 
She absolutely worshiped that child. 

This conversation gave Sir Cyprian Davenant material 
for much sad thought. To know that Constance was un- 
happy seemed to bring her nearer to him. It brought back 
the thought of the old days when those innocent eyes had 
looked into his eloquent with unconscious love, when Con- 
stance Clanyarde had given him her heart without thought 
for to-morrow, happy in the knowledge that she was loved, 
believing her lover strong to conquer Fate and. Fortune. 
And he had brought the chilly light of worldly wisdom to 
bear on this dream of Arcady. He had been strong, self- 
denying, and had renounced his own happiness in the hope 
of securing hers. And now Fate laughed him to scorn with 
this gift of vain riches; and he found that his worldly wis- 
dom had been supreme folly. 

“ What a self-sufficient fool, what an idiot, I have been!^' 
he said to himself, in an agony of remorse. “ And now 
what atonement can I make to her for my folly? Can I 
defend her from the purse-proud snob she has been sold to? 
can I save her wounded heart one pang? can I be near her 
in her hour of misery, or offer one drop of comfort from a 
soul overflowing with tenderness and pity? Iso; to approach 
her is to do her a wrong. But I can watch at a distance 
perhaps. I may use other eyes. My money may be of 
some use in buying her faithful service from others. God 
bless her! I consecrate my days to her service; distant or 
near I will be her friend and her defender.^’ 

Two days later Sir Cyprian met Lord Clanyarde at that 
nobleman'’s favorite club. It was a club which Cyprian 
Davenant rarely used, although he had been a member 
ever since his majority, and it may be that he went out of 
his beaten track in the hope of encountering Constance 
Sinclair’s father. 

Lord Clanyarde was very cordial and complimentary 
upon his friend’s altered fortune. 

“ You must feel sorry for having parted with Davenant,’* 
he said, “ when you might so easily have kept .it.” 

“ Davenant is rather too big for a confirmed bachelor.’* 

“ True, it would have been a white elephant, I dare say. 
Sinclair has improved the place considerably. You ought 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


87 


to come down and have a look at it. I^m going to March- 
brook to shoot next week. Come and stay with me/" add- 
ed Lord Clanyarde, with heartiness;, not at all prepared to 
be taken at his word. 

“ I shall be charmed/" said Sir Cyprian, to his lordship"s 
infinite astonishment. 

People generally took his invitations for what they were 
worth, and declined them. But here was a man fresh from 
the center of Africa, who hardly understood the language 
of polite society. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

“at MERLIN"S feet the wily VIVIEN LAY."" 

All went merrily at Davenant during the brief bleak days 
of November and December, though the master of the 
house was not without his burden of secret cark and care. 
That magnificent iron and coal producing estate in the 
north had not been yielding quite so much hard cash as its 
owner expected from it lately. Strikes and trade-unionism 
had told upon Mr. Sinclair"s income. The coal market 
had fi actuated awkwardly. Belgium had been tapping the 
demand for iron. There was plenty of money coming in, 
of course, from Gilbert"s large possessions; but unfortu- 
nately there was also a great deal going out. The New- 
market stables had cost a small fortune, the Newmarket 
horses had been unlucky, and Gilbert"s book for the last 
three or four seasons had been a decided failure. 

“ The fact is, Wyatt,"" he remarked, to that confidential 
adviser, one dull afternoon, over a tete-a-tete game at bil- 
liards, “ I"m spending too much money."" 

“ Have you only just found that out?"" asked the solici- 
tor, with a calm sneer. 

“ The purchase of this confounded place took too much 
of my capital, and these strikes and lock-outs coming on 
the top of it — "" 

“Not to mention your vicious habit of plunging,"" re- 
marked Mr. Wyatt, parentheticall}^, taking a careful aim 
at the distant red. 

“ Have very nearly stumped me."" 

“ Why not sell Davenant? You don"t want such a big 
barrack of a place, and — Mrs. Sinclair isn"t happy here. "" 


88 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


‘‘ said Gilbert, with a smothered oath; the asso- 
ciations are too tender.'’^ 

“ I could get you a purchaser to-morrow.’’^ 

Yes, at a dead loss, no doubt. You fellows live by 
buying and selling, and yo-u don^t care how much your 
client loses by a transaction that brings grist to your mill.'’' 

“ 1 can get you the money you gave for Davenant, tim- 
ber and all.’^ 

“ Who’s your purchaser?” 

“ J’d rather not mention his name yet awhile. He is a 
quiet party, and wouldn’t like to be talked about.” 

I understand. Some city cad who has made his money 
in the zoological line?” 

‘‘ How zoological?” 

“ Bulling and bearing. Well, if those beastly colliers 
hold out much longer, he may have Davenant and welcome. 
But he must take my new furniture at a valuation. I’ve 
paid no end of money for it. ’ ’ 

What did you do with the old Jacobean oak?” 

Oh, the old sticks are put away somewhere, I believe, 
in lofts and lumber-rooms and servants’ bedrooms.” 

Some of Mr. Sinclair’s other guests dropped into the 
billiard-room at this juncture, and there was no more said 
about the sale of Davenant. 

Nobody — not even his worst enemy, and no doubt among 
his numerous friends he had several foes — could deny Mr. 
Wyatt’s merits as a guest in a country-house. . He was just 
the kind of man to keep things going— a past-master in all 
social accomplishments — and Gilbert Sinclair graciously 
allowed him to take the burden of amusing everybody upon 
his shoulders, while the master of the house went his own 
way, and hunted or shot at his own pleasure. Mr. Sinclair 
liked to fill his house with people, but he had no idea of 
sacrificing his own inclination to their entertainment; he 
thought he did quite enough for them in giving them what 
he elegantly called the run of their, teeth, ” and the free 
use of his second-rate hunters. 

On Mr. Wyatt, therefore, devolved the duty of keeping 
things going — devising the day’s amusements, protecting 
the ladies of the party from the selfishness of neglectful and 
unappreciative mankind, arranging picnic luncheons in 
keepers’ lodges, at which the fair sex might assist, finding 
safe mounts for those aspiring damsels who wanted to ride 


WEATERS AND WEFT. 


89 


to hounds, planning private theatricals, and stimulating 
the musical members of the society to the performance of 
part songs in a business-like and creditable manner. 

He had done all these things last winter and the winter 
before, but on those occasions he had been aided in his task. 
Constance Sinclair had given him her hearty co-operation. 
She had played her part of hostess with grace and spirit — 
had allowed no cloud of thought or memory to obscure the 
brightness of the present moment. She had given herself 
up, heart and soul, to the duties of her position, and her 
friends had believed her to be the happiest of women, as 
well as the most fortunate. To seem thus had cost her 
many an effort; but she had deemed this one of her obliga- 
tions as Gilbert Sinclair’s wife. 

Now all was changed. Her husband had been obeyed; 
but that obedience was all which Constance Sinclair’s sense 
of duty could now compel. She sat like a beautiful statue 
at the head of her husband’s table, she moved about among 
her guests with as little part in their pleasures and amuse- 
ments as if she had been a picture on the wall — courteous 
to all, but familiar with none, she seemed to live apart 
from her surroundings — a strange and silent life, whose 
veil of shadow even sympathy failed to penetrate. Mrs. 
Millamount, not unkindly, despite her frivolity, had tried 
to get Constance to talk of her bereavement, but the 
wounded heart was galled by the gentlest touch. 

‘‘ It’s very kind of you,” she said, divining her friend’s 
motive, ‘‘ but I’d rather not talk of her. Nothing can 
ever lessen my grief, and I like best to keep it quite to my- 
self.” 

“ How you must hate us all for being here!” said Mrs. 
Millamount, moved with compunction at the incongruity 
between the houseful of company and the mother’s desofate 
heart. “ It seems quite abominable for us to be thinking 
of nothing but pleasure while you bear your burden alone. ” 

‘‘ Nobody could divide it*with me,” answered Constance, 
gently. “ Pray do not trouble yourself about my sorrows. 
If I could hide them better, I would. Gilbert likes to be 
surrounded with pleasant faces, and I am very glad that he 
should be pleased.” 

‘‘ She’s quite too good to live,” remarked the sprightly 
Mrs. Millamount to her friend Lady Loveall, that evening. 

But do 3^011 know I’m afraid there’s something a little 


90 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


wrong here/^ and Flora Miilamount touched her ivory fore- 
head suggestively with the tip of her Watteau fan. 

Janies Wyatt was not a sportsman. He was an excellent 
judge of a horse, rode well, and knew as much about guns 
as the men who were continually handling them, but he- 
neither shot nor hunted, and he had never been known to 
speculate upon the turf. These things were for his clients 
— a very pretty way of running through handsome fortunes 
and bringing their owners to the Jews — not for him. Ho 
could take his amusement out of other men^s follies and 
remain wise himself. Life to him was an agreeable and 
instructive spectacle, which he assisted at as comfortably 
as he heard “ Hon Giovanni from his stall in the third 
row; and when the foul fiend of insolvency whisked off ono 
of his dearest friends to the infernal regions where bank- 
rupts and outlaws inhabit, he felt what a nice thing it was 
to be only a spectator of the great drama. 

Not being a sportsman, Mr. Wyatt had a good deal of 
time to himself at Havenant despite his general usefulness^ 
There were rainy mornings when the men were out shoot* 
ing, and the ^bus had not yet started for the point of ren- 
dezvous with the ladies and the luncheon. These leisure 
hours Mr. Wyatt improved*by strolling about the corridors, 
looking at the old pictures, for the most part in that medi- 
tative mood in which a man sees very little of the picture 
he seems to contemplate, and occasionally by a quiet flirta- 
tion with Melanie Duport. That young person had plenty 
of leisure for perambulating the corridors between break- 
fast and dinner. Mrs. Sinclair was by no means an exact- 
ing mistress, and Melanie ^s life at Havenant was one of 
comparative idleness. Her superiority of mind showed it- 
self in a calm contempt for her * fellow-servants, and 
she 'was rarely to be found in the servants^ rooms. 
She preferred the retirement of her own bed-chamber, and 
a French novel lent her by’ that good-natured Mr. Wyatt,, 
who had always a supply of the newest and worst Parisian 
literature in his portmanteau. On this dull Hecember 
morning, a day of gray clouds and frequent showers, Mr. 
Wyatt stood before a doubtful Vandyck, smoking medi- 
tatively, and apparently absorbed in a critical examination 
of Prince Kupert^s slouched beaver and ostrich plume,, 
when Melanie^’s light, quick step and tripping French walk 
at the* other end of the gallery caught his ear. 


WEAYEES AND WEFT. 


91 


He turned slowly round to meet her, puffing lazily at his 
cigar. 

“ Eh, la helle,^^ he exclaimed, “ even an English Decem- 
ber does not dim the luster of those southern eyes.'^^ 

“I was born in the Quartier Latin, and my parents were 
all that there is of the most Parisian, answered Melanie, 
scornfully. 

“ Then you must have stolen those eyes of yours from 
one of the Murillos in the Louvre. What news, little one?^^ 

“ Only that I find myself more and more weary of this 
great barrack. 

Come now, Melanie you must confess you have a good 
time of it here.^'’ 

‘‘ Oh, as for that, perhaps I ought not to complain. My 
mistress is very gentle, too gentle; it gnaws me to the heart 
to see her silent grief. That preys upon my mind.'^ 

Here Melanie squeezed out a tear, which she removed 
from her pearl-powdered cheek — a very sallow cheek under 
the powder — daintily with the corner of a hem-stitched 
hankerchief. 

‘‘You are too compassionate, little one,^’ said Mr. 
Wyatt, putting his arm round her waist consolingly. Per- 
haps he had gone a little too far with these leisure half 
hours of flirtation. He had an idea that the girl was going 
to be troublesome. Tears augured mischief. 

C^est dommage/^ murmured Melanie; “I have the 
heart too tender. 

“ Don’t fret, my angel. See here, pretty one, I have 
brought you another novel,” taking a paper-covered book 
from his pocket. 

“Belotr” 

“ No, Zola.” 

“ I don’t want it. I won’t read it. Your novels are 
full of lies. They describe men who will make any sacrifice 
for the woman they love — men who will take a peasant girl 
from her hovel, or a grisette from her garret, and make 
her a queen. There are no such men. I don’t believe in 
them,” cried the girl, passionately, her eyes flashing fire. 

“ Don’t be angry, Melanie. Novels would be dull if 
they told only the truth.” 

“ They would be very amusing if they described men of 
your pattern,” retorted Melanie. “ Men who say sweet 
things without meaning them, who flatter every woman 


92 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


they talk to, who turn a foolish girhs head with their pret- 
ty speeches and caressing ways, and then laugh at her folly. 
Yes, as' you are laughing at me,"’^ cried Melanie, exasper- 
ated by Mr. Wyatt^s placid smile. 

‘‘ No, my sweet, I am only admiring you/’ he replied,, 
calmly. What have I done to raise this tempest. 

“ AV^hat have you done?^’ cried Melanie, and then burst 
into tears, real tears this time, which seriously damaged 
the pearl-powder. “lam sure I don^’t know why I should 
care so much for you. You are not handsome. You are 
not even young. 

“ Perhaps not, but I am very agreeable,^ ^ said James 
AYyatt, complacently. “ Don^t cry, ma belle; only be 
patient and reasonable, and perhaps I shall be able to prove 
to you some day that there are men, real, living men, who 
are capable of any sacrifice for the woman they love.^^ 

Melanie allowed herself to be appeased by this rather 
vague speech, but she was only half convinced. 

“ Tell me only one thing,'''’ she said. “ Who is that lady 
I saw at Schoenesthal? and why were you so anxious ta 
please her?” 

James WyatPs smooth face clouded at this question. 

“ She is related to me, and I knew she had been used 
badly. Hush, my dear, walls have ears. There are 
things we mustnT talk about here.” 

“ What is the lady^s real name?” 

“ Madame Chose. She comes of the oldest branch of 
the family — altogether grande dame, I assure you.^^ 

“ I wish she would take me into her service.” 

“ Why, you are better off here than with her. ” 

“ I doiPt think so. I should see more of you if I lived 
with that lady.^^ 

“ There you are wrong. I see Madame Chose very 
rarely.” 

“ I donT believe you. ” 

“ Melanie, that’s extremely rude.” 

“ I believe that you are passionately in love with that 
lady, and that is why—” 

“ Not another word,” exclaimed James Wyatt; “ there’s 
the luncheon bell, and I must be off. You’d better tako 
Zola. You’ll find him more amusing than the talk in the 
servants’ hall.” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


93 


Melanie took the volume sullenly, and walked away with- 
out a word. 

WJiat a little spitfire!” mused Mr. Wyatt, as he went 
slowly down the wide oak staircase. ‘‘ She has taken my 
pretty speeches seriously, and means to make herself ob- 
noxious. This comes of putting one’s self in power of the 
inferior sex. If I - had trusted a man — as I trusted that 
girl — it would have been a simple matter of business. He 
would have been extortionate, perhaps, and there an end^ 
But Mademoiselle Duport makes it an affair of the heart, 
and I dare say will worry my life out before I have done 
with her. ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

SIR CYPRIAN HAS HIS SUSPICIONS. 

Sir Cyprian Davenant had not forgotten that din- 
ner at Richmond given by Gilbert Sinclair a little while 
before his departure for Africa, at which he had met the 
handsome widow to whom Mr. Sinclair was then supposed 
to be engaged. The fact was brought more vividly back 
to his mind by a circumstance that came under his notice 
the evening after he had accepted Lord Clanyarde’s in- 
vitation to Marchbrook. 

He had been dining at his club with an old college friend, 
and had consented, somewhat unwillingly, to an adjourn- 
ment to one of the theaters near the Strand, at which a pop- 
ular burlesque was being played for the three hundred and 
sixty-fifth time. Sir Cyprian entertained a cordial detesta- 
tion of this kind of entertainment, in which the low 
comedian of the company enacts a distressed damsel in 
short petticoats and a fiaxen wig, while pretty actresses 
swagger in costumes of the cavalier period, and ape the 
manners of the music-hall swell. But it was ten o’clock. 
The friends had recalled all the old Oxford follies in the 
days when they were under-graduates together in Tom 
Quad. They had exhausted these reminiscences and a 
magnum of Lafitte, and though Sir Cyprian would have 
gladly gone back to his chambers and his books. Jack Hun- 
ster, his friend, was of a livelier temperament, and wanted 
to finish the evening. 

‘‘ Let’s go and see ‘ Hercules and Omphale ’ at the 


94 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


Kaleidoscope/’ he said. It’s no end of fun. Jeemson 
plays Omphale in a red wig, and Minnie Vavasour looks 
awfully fascinating in pink satin boots and lion-skin. We 
shall be just in time for the breakdown. ” 

Sir Cyprian assented with a yawn. He had seen fifty 
such burlesques as “ Hercules and Omphale ” in the days 
when such things had their charm for him too, when he 
could be pleased with a pretty girl in pink satin Hessians, 
or be moved to laughter by Jeemson’s painted nose and 
falsetto scream. 

They took a hansom and drove to the Kaleidoscope, a 
bandbox of a theater screwed into an awkward corner of 
one of the narrowest streets in London — a street at which 
well-bred carriage-horses accustomed to the broad thorough- 
fares of Belgravia, shied furiously. 

It was December, and there was no one worth speaking 
of in town; but the little Kaleidoscope was crowded, not- 
withstanding. There were just a brace of empty stalls in 
a draughty corner for Sir Cyprian and Mr. Dunster. 

The breakdown was just on, the pretty little Hercules 
fiourishing his club, and exhibiting a white round arm with 
a diamond bracelet above the elbow. Omphale was show- 
ing her ankles, to the delight of the groundlings, the vio- 
lins were racing one another, and the fiute squeaking its 
shrillest in a vulgar nigger melody, accentuated by rhyth- 
mical bangs on the big drum. The audience were in rapt- 
ures, and rewarded the exertions of band and dancers with 
a double recall. Sir Cyprian stifled another yawn and 
looked round the house. 

Among the vacuous countenances, all intent on the 
spectacle, there was one face which was out of the com- 
mon, and which expressed a supreme weariness. A lady 
sitting alone in a stage-box, with one rounded arm resting 
indolently on the velvet cushion — an arm that might have 
been carved in marble, bare to the elbow, its warm human 
ivory relieved by the yellow hue of an old Spanish point 
ruffle. Where had Cyprian Davenant seen that face be- 
fore? 

The lady had passed the first bloom of youth, but her 
beauty was of the character that does not fade with youth. 
She was of. the Pauline Borghese type, a woman worthy 
to be modeled by a new Canova. 

“ I remember,” said Sir Cyprian to himself. It was 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


9 ^ 


at that Richmond dinner I met her. She is the lady Gil« 
bert Sinclair was to have married.’^ 

He felt a curious interest in this woman, whose namo 
even he had forgotten. Why had not Sinclair married 
her? She was strikingly handsome, with a bolder, grander 
beauty than Constance Clanyarde^s fragile and poetic love^ 
liness — a woman whom such a man as Sinclair might have^ 
naturally chosen. Just as such a man would choose a 
high-stepping, chestnut horse, without being too nice as ta 
fineness and delicacy of line. 

“ And I think from the little I saw that the lady was at* 
tached to him,'’’ mused Sir Cyprian. 

He glanced at the stage-box several times before the end 
of the performance. The lady was quite alone, and sat in 
the same attitude, fanning herself languidly, and hardlj 
looking at the stage. Just as the curtain fell. Sir Cyprian 
heard the click of the box door, and looking up, saw that 
a gentleman had entered. The lady rose, and he came a 
little forward to assist in the arrangement of her ermine- 
line mantle. 

The gentleman was 'Gilbert Sinclair. 

“What did you think of it?” asked Jack Dunster, as 
they went out into the windy lobby, where people wero 
crowded together waiting for their carriages. 

“ Abominable,” murmured Sir Cyprian. 

“ Why, Minnie Vavasour is the prettiest actress in Lon* 
don, and Jeemson’s almost equal to Toole. ’’ 

“ I beg your pardon. I was not thinking of the bur* 
lesque,” answered Sir Cyprian, hastily. 

Gilbert and his companion were just in front of them. 

“ Shall I go and look for your carriage?” asked Mr. Sin* 
clair. 

“ If you like. But as you left me to sit out this dreary 
rubbish by myself all the evening, you might just as well 
have let me find my way to my carriage.” 

“ Don’t be angry with me for breaking my engagement. 
I was obliged to go out shooting with some fellows, and I 
didn’t leave Maidstone till nine o’clock. I think I paid 
you a considerable compliment in traveling thirty miles to* 
hand you to your carriage. Ho other woman could expect 
so much from me. ” 

“ You are not going back to Davenant to-night?” 

“ No; there is a supper on at the Albion. Lord Colster* 


96 


WEAVERS AIs^D WEFT. 


dale’s trainer is to be there, and I expect to get a wrinkle 
or two from him. A simple matter of business, I assure 
you. ’ ’ 

Mrs. Wulsingum’s carriage!” roared the waterman. 

“ Mrs. Walsingham,” thought Sir Cyprian, who was 
squeezed into a corner with his friend, walled up by opera- 
cloaked shoulders, and within ear-shot of Mr. Sinclair. 

Yes, that’s her name.” 

‘‘ That saves you all trouble,” said Mrs. Walsingham. 

Can I set you down anywhere?” 

‘‘ No, thanks; the Albion’s close by.” 

Sir Cyprian struggled out of his corner just in time to 
see Gilbert shut the brougham door and walk off through 
the December drizzle. 

So that acquaintance is not a dropped one,” he 
thought. ‘‘ It augurs ill for Constance.” 

Three days later he was riding out Barnet way, in a quiet 
country lane, as rural and remote in aspect as an accom- 
modation road in the shires, when he passed a brougham 
with a lady in it — Mrs. Walsingham again, and again 
^ 1.0110 

This looks like fatality,” he thought. 

He had been riding Londonward, but turned his horse 
and followed the carriage. This solitary drive, on a dull, 
gray winter day, so far from London, struck him as curi- 
ous. There might be nothing really suspicious in ‘the fact. 
Mrs. Walsingham might have friends in this northern dis- 
trict. But after what he had seen at the Kaleidoscope, Sir 
Cyprian was inclined to suspect Mrs. Walsingham. That 
she still cared for Sinclair he was assured. He had seen 
her face light up when Gilbert entered the box; he had 
seen that suppressed anger which is the surest sign of a 
jealous, exacting love. Whether Gilbert still cared for her 
was an open question. His meeting her at the theater 
might have been a concession to a dangerous woman rather 
than a spontaneous act of devotion. 

Sir Cyprian followed the brougham into the sequestered 
village of Totte ridge, where it drew up before the garden 
gate of a neat cottage with green blinds and a half -glass 
door — a cottage which looked like the abode of a spinster 
annuitant. 

Here Mrs. Walsingham alighted and went in, opening 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


97 


the half-glass door with the air of a person accustomed to 
enter. 

He rode a little way further, and then walked his horse 
gently back. The i)roughani was still standing before the 
garden gate, and Mrs. Walsingham was walking up and 
down a gravel-path by the side of the house with a woman 
and a child — a child in a scarlet hood, just able to toddle 
along the path, sustained on each side by a supporting 
hand. 

“ Some poor relation’s child, perhaps,” thought Cyprian. • 

A friendly visit on the lady’s part.” 

He had ridden further than he intended, and stopped at 
a little inn to give his horse a feed of corn and an hour’s 
rest, while he strolled through the village and looked at the 
old-fashioned church-yard. The retired spot was not with- 
out its interest. Yonder was Coppet Hall, the place Lord 
Melbourne once occupied, and which had, later, passed 
into the possession of the author of that splendid series of 
brilliant and various novels which reflect as in a magic 
mirror all the varieties of life from the age of Pliny to the 
eve of the Franco-Prussian war. 

“ Who lives in that small house with the green blinds?” 
asked Sir Cyprian, as he mounted his horse to ride home. 

‘‘ It’s been took furnished, sir, by a lady from London 
for her nurse and baby.” 

“ Do you know the lady’s name?” 

I can’t say that I do, sir. They has their beer from 
the brewer, and pays ready money for everythink. But I 
see the lady’s brougham go by not above ’alf an hour 
ago.” 

‘‘ Curious,” thought Sir Cyprian. ‘‘ Mrs. Walsingham 
is not rising in my opinion.” 


CHAPTEB XV. 

^‘THEY LIVE TOO LONG WHO HAPPINESS OUTLIVE.” 

In accepting Lord Clanyarde’s invitation Cyprian Dave- 
nant had but one thought, one motive— to be near Con- 
stance. Not to see her. Dear as she still was to him, he 
had no desire to see her. He knew that such a meeting 
could bring with it only bitterness for both. But he wanted 
to be near her, to ascertain at once and forever the whole 

4 


98 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


unvarnislied truth as to her domestic life, the extent of her 
unhappiness, if she was unhappy. Eumor might exagger- 
ate. Even the practical solicitor James Wyatt might 
represent the state of affairs as worse than it was. The 
human mind leans to vivid coloring and bold dramatic 
effect. An ill-used wife and a tyrannical husband present 
one of those powerful pictures which society contemplates 
with interest. Society represented generally by Lprd Dun- 
dreary — likes to pity just as it likes to wonder. 

At Marchbrook Sir Cyprian Was likely to learn the truth, ' 
and to Marchbrook he went, affecting an interest in pheas- 
ants, and in Lord Clanyarde^s conversation, which was like 
a rambling and unrevised edition of the ‘‘ Greville 
Memoirs,^ ^ varied with turf reminiscences. 

There was wonderfully fine weather in that second week 
of December — clear autumnal days, blue skies, and sunny 
mornings. The pheasants were shy, and after the first day 
Sir Cyprian left them to their retirement, preferring long, 
lonely rides among the scenes of his boyhood, and half 
hours of friendly chat with ancient gaffers and goodies who 
remembered his father and mother, and the days when 
Davenant had still held up its head in the occupation of 
the old race. 

‘‘ This noo gentleman, he do spend a power o^ money; 
but heTl never be looked up to like old Sir Cyprian, said 
the gray-headed village sage, leaning over his gate to taJ k 
to young Sir Cyprian. 

In one of his rounds Cyprian Davenant looked in upon 
the abode of Martha Briggs, who was still at home. Her 
parents were in decent circumstances, and not eager to see 
their daughter “ suited with a new service. 

Martha remembered Sir Cyprian as a friend of Mrs. Sin- 
clair's before her marriage. She had seen them out walk- 
ing together in the days when Constance Clanyarde was still 
in the nursery; for Lord Clanyarde^s youngest daughter 
had known no middle stage between the nursery and her 
majesty '’s drawing-room. Indeed, Martha had had her 
own ideas about Sir Cyprian, and had quite made up her 
mind that Miss Constance would marry him. 

She was therefore disposed to be confidential, and with 
very slight encouragement told Cyprian all about that sad 
time at Schoenesthal, how her mistress had nursed her 
through a fever, and how the sweetest child that ever lived 


WEAVEKS AKD WEFT. 


99 


had been drowned through that horrid French girFs care- 
lessness. 

“ It’s all very well to boast of jumping into the river to 
save the darling,” exclaimed Martha; “ but why did she 
go and take the precious pet into a dangerous placer When 
I had her, I could see danger before&nd. 1 didn’t want 
to be told that a hill was steep, or that grass was slippery. 
I never did like foreigners, and now I hate them like 
poison,” cried Miss Briggs, as if under the impression that 
the whole continent of Europe was implicated in Baby 
Christabel’s death. 

It must have been a great grief to Mrs. Sinclair,” said 
Sir Cyprian. 

“ Ah, poor dear, she’ll never hold up her head again,” 
sighed Martha. “ I saw her in church last Sunday, in the 
beautifulest black bonnet, and if ever I saw any one going 
to heaven, it’s her. And Mr. Sinclair will have a lot of 
company, and there are all the windows at Davenant blaz- 
ing with light till past twelve o’clock every night — my 
cousin Janies is a pointsman on the South-eastern, and sees 
the house from the line — while that poor sweet lady is 
breaking her heart.” 

But surely Mr. Sinclair would defer to his wife in these 
things,” suggested Sir Cyprian. 

‘‘ E’ot he, sir. For the last twelve months that I was 
with my dear lady I seldom heard him say a land word to 
her. Always snarling and sneering. I do believe he was 
jealous of that precious innocent because Mrs. Sinclair was 
so fond of her. I’m sure if it hadn’t been for that dear 
baby my mistress would have been a miserable woman. ” 

This was a bad hearing, and Sir Cyprian went back to 
Marchbrook that evening sorely depressed. 

He had declined to visit Havenant with Lord Clanyarde, 
owning frankly that there was no friendly feeling between 
Cilbert Sinclair and himself. Lord Clanyarde perfectly 
understood the state of the case, but affected to be su- 
premely ignorant. He was a gentleman whose philosophy 
was to take things easy. Not to disturb Camerina, or any 
other social lake beneath whose tranquil water there might 
lurk a foul and muddy bottom, was a principle with Lord 
Clanyarde. But the nobleman, though jJiilosophic and 
easy-tempered, was not without a heart. There was a 
strain of humanity in the Sybarite and worldling, and when 


100 


WEAVERS AND WEET. 


at a great dinner at Davenant, he saw the impress of a 
broken heart upon the statuesque beauty of his daughter's 
face, he was touched with pity and alarm. To sell his 
daughter to the highest bidder had not seemed to him in 
any wise a crime; but he would not have sold her to age or 
deformity, or to a man of notoriously evil life. Gilbert 
Sinclair had appeared to him a very fair sample of the 
average young Englishman. Not stainless, perhaps. Lord 
Clanyarde did not inquire too closely into details. The 
suitor was good-looking, good-natured, open-handed, and 
rich. What more could any dowerless young woman re- 
quire? Thus had Lord Clanyarde reasoned with himself 
when he hurried on his youngest daughter's marriage; and 
having secured for her this handsome establishment, he 
had given himself no further concern about her destin}^ 
No daughter of the house of Clanyarde had ever appeared 
in the divorce court. Constance was a girl of high prin- 
ciples, always went to church on saints^ days, abstained in 
Lent, and would be sure to go on all right. 

But at Davenant, on this particular evening. Lord Clan- 
yarde saw a change in his daughter that chilled his heart. 

He talked to her, and she answered him absently, with 
the air of one who only half understands. Surely this 
argued something more than grief for her dead child. 

He spoke to Gilbert Sinclair, and gave frank utterance 
to his alarm. 

Yes, she is very low-spirited,^^ answered Gilbert, care- 
lessly: ‘‘ still fretting for the little girl. I thought it would 
cheer her to have people about her — prevent her dwelling 
too much upon that unfortunate event. But I really think 
she gets worse. It^s rather hard upon me. I didiiT marry 
to be miserable. 

“ Have you had a medical opinion about her?^^ asked 
Lord Clanyarde, anxiously. 

“ Oh, yes, she has her own doctor. The little old man 
who used to attend her at Marchbrook. He knows her 
constitution, no doubt. He prescribes- tonics, and so on,, 
and recommends change of scene by and by, when she gets 
a little stronger; but my own opinion is that if she would 
only make an effort, and not brood upon the past, she'd 
soon get round again. Oh, by the way, 1 hear you have 
Sir Cyprian Davenant staying with you." 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


101 


‘‘ Yes, lie lias come down to shoot some of my pheas- 
ants.^^ 

“ I didiiH know you and he were so thick. 

“ I have known him ever since he was a boy, and knew 
his father before him. 

‘‘ I wonder, as your estates joined, you did not knock up 
a match between him and Constance. 

That wouldn’t have been much good, as he couldn’t 
keep his estate.” 

“ No. It’s a pity that old man in Lincolnshire didn’t 
take it into his head to die a little sooner.” 

I find no fault with destiny for giving me you as a son- 
in-law, and I hope you are not tired of the position,” said 
Lord Clanyarde, with a look that showed Gilbert he must 
pursue his insinuations no further. 

Lord Clanyarde went home and told Sir Cyprian what 
he had seen, and his fears about Constance. He re- 
proached himself bitterly for his sh^re in bringing about 
the marriage, being all the more induced to regret that act 
now that change of fortune had made Cyprian as good a 
yarti as Gilbert Sinclair. 

How short-sighted we mortals are!” thought the anx- 
ious father. “ I did not even know that Cyprian had a 
rich bachelor uncle.” 

Sir Cyprian heard Lord Clan3’arde’s account in grave 
silence. 

‘‘ What do you mean to do?” he asked. 

‘‘ What can I do? Poor child, she is alone, and must 
bear her burden unaided. I can not come between her and 
her husband. It would take ve^y little to make me quar- 
rel with Sinclair, and then where should we be? If she 
had a mother living it would be different.” 

‘‘ She has sisters,” suggested Cyprian. 

“ Yes, women who are absorbed by the care of their own 
families, and who would not go very far out of their way 
to help her. With pragmatical husbands, too, \yho would 
make no end of mischief if they were allowed to interfere. 
No; we must not make a family row of the business. After 
all, there is no specific ground for complaint. She does not 
complain, poor child. I’ll go to Havenant early to-morrow 
and see her alone. Perhaps I can persuade her to be 
frank with me.” 


102 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


‘‘ You might see the doctor, and hear his account of her, 
said Cyprian. 

“ Yes, by the way, little Dr. AVebb, who attended my 
girls from their cradles. An excellent little man. Til 
send for him to-morrow and consult him about my rheuma- 
tism. He must know a good deal about my poor child. 

Lord Clanyarde was with his daughter soon after break- 
fast next morning. He found her in that pretty old-fash- 
ioned room which had been ChristabeDs day nursery, and 
which had a door of communication with Mrs. Sinclair's 
dressing-room. It was a curious angle of the house at the 
end of the north wing, and was overlooked by the oriel- 
'window of Gilbert’s study — which occupied the opposite 
corner of the wing — study jjar excellence, but dressing- 
room and gunnery in fact. 

Constance received her father with affection, but he could 
not win her confidence. It might be that she had nothing 
to confide. She made no complaint against her husband. 

“ AAdiy do I find you sitting here alone, Constance, while 
the house is full of cheerful people?” asked Lord Clan- 
yarde. ‘‘ I heard the billiard-balls going as I came 
through the hall, early as it is.” 

“ Gilbert likes company, and I do not,” answered Con- 
stance, quietly. “ We each take our own way. ” 

“ That does not sound like a happy union, pet,” said 
her father. 

“ Did you expect me to be happy — with Gilbert Sin- 
clair?” 

Yes, my love, or I would never have asked you to 
marry him. No, Constance. Of course it was an under- 
stood thing with me that you must marry well, as your sis- 
ters had done before you; but I meant you to marry a man 
who would make you happy; and if I find that Sinclair ill- 
nses you or slights you, egad, he shall have no easy reckon- 
ing with me.” 

My dear father, pray be calm. He is very good to 
me. I have never complained — I never shall complain. 
I try to do my duty, for I know that I have done him a 
wrong for which a life of duty and obedience can hardly 
atone. 

“ Wronged him, child? How have you wronged him?” 

“ By marrying him when my heart was given to an- 
other. ” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


103 


‘‘Nonsense, pet: a mere school-girl penchant. If that 
kind of thing were to count, there^s hardly a wife living 
who has not wronged her husband. Every romantic girl 
begins by falling in love with a detrimental; but the 
memory of that juvenile attachment has no more influence 
on her married life than the recollection of her favorite 
doll. You must get such silly notions out of your head. 
And you should try to be a little more lively; join in Sin- 
clair’s amusements. No man likes a gloomy wife. And 
remember, love, the past is past — no tears can bring back 
our losses. If they could, hope would prevent our crying, 
as somebody judiciously observes.” 

Constance sighed and was silent, whereupon Lord Clan- 
yarde embraced his daughter tenderly and departed, feeling 
that he had done his duty. She was much depressed, poor 
child, but no doubt time would- set things right; and as to 
Sinclair’s ill-treating her, that was out of the question. 
No man above the working classes ill-uses his wife nowa- 
days. Lord Clanyarde made quite light of his daughter’s 
troubles when he met Sir Cyprian at lunch. Sinclair was 
a good fellow enough at bottom, he assured Sir Cyprian; a 
little too fond of pleasure, perhaps, but with no harm in 
him, and Constance was inclined to make rather too much 
fuss about the loss of her little girl. 

Sir Cyprian heard this change of tone in silence, and was 
not convinced. He contrived to see Dr. Webb, the Maid- 
stone surgeon, that afternoon. He remembered the good- 
natured little doctor as his attendant in many a childish 
ailment, and was not afraid of asking him a question or 
two. From him he heard a very bad account of Constance 
Sinclair. Dr. Webb professed himself fairly baffled. There 
was no bodily ailment, except want of strength; but there 
was a settled' melancholy, a deep and growing depression 
for which medicine was of no avail.” 

“ You’ll ask why I don’t propose getting a better opinion 
than my own,” said Dr. Webb, “ and I’ll tell you why. I 
might call in half the great men in London and be no wiser 
than I am now. They would only make Mrs. Sinclair 
more nervous, and she is very nervous already. I am a 
faithful watch-dog, and at the first indication of danger I 
shall take measures. 

“ You don’t apprehend any danger to the mind?” asked 
Sir Cyprian, anxiously. 


104 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


“ There is no immediate cause for fear. But if this mel- 
ancholy continues, if the nervousness increases, I can not 
answer for the result.’^ 

“ You have told Mr. Sinclair as much as thisr^^ 

“Yes, I have spoken to him very frankl3^^' 

It would have been difficult to imagine a life more soli- 
tary than that which Constance Sinclair contrived to lead 
in a house full of guests. For the first two or three weeks 
she had bravely tried to sustain her part as hostess; she had 
pretended to be amused by the amusements of others, or, 
when unable to support even that poor simulation, had sat 
at her embroidery frame and given the grace of her pres- 
ence to the assembl3% But now she was fain to hide her- 
self all day long in her own rooms, or to walk alone in the 
fine old park, restricting her public appearance to the even- 
ing, when she took her place at the head of the dinner- 
table, and endured the frivolities of the drawing-room after 
dinner. Gilbert secretly resented this withdrawal, and re- 
fused to believe that the death of Baby Christabel was his 
wife’s sole cause of grief. There was something deeper— a 
sorrow for the past — a regret that was intensified by Sir 
Cyprian’s presence in the neighborhood. 

“ She knows of his being at Marchbrook, of course,” he 
told himself. “ How do I know they have not met? She 
lives her own life, almost as much apart from me as if we 
were in separate houses. She has had time and opportunity 
for seeing him, and in all probability he is at Marchbrook 
only for the sake of being near her. ” 

But Sir Cyprian had been at Marchbrook a week, and 
had not seen Constance Sinclair. How the place would 
have reminded him of her, had not her image been always 
present with him in all times and places! Every grove and 
meadow had its memory, every change in the fair pastoral 
landscape its bitter-sweet association. 

Marchbrook and Davenant were divided in some parts by 
an eight-foot wall, in others by an oak fence. The Dave- 
nant side of the land adjoining Marchbrook was copse and 
wilderness, which served as a covert for game. The March- 
brook side, a wide stretch of turf, which Lord Clanyarde 
let off as grazing land to one of his tenants. A railed-in 
plantation here and there supported the fiction that this 
meadow land was a park, and for his own part Lord Clan- 


WEAVERS AXE AVEFT. 105 

yarde declared that he would just as soon look at oxen as 
at deer. 

The one only feature of Marchbrook Park was its ave- 
nues. One of these, known as the Monks^ Avenue, and 
supposed to have been planted in the days when March- 
brook Avas the site of a Benedictine monastery, was a noble 
arcade of tall elms planted sixty feet apart, Avith a grassy 
road between them. The monastery had long vanished, 
leaving not a wrack behind, and the avenue now led only 
from wall to wall. The owners of Davenant had built a 
classic temple or summer-house close against the boundary 
Avail between the two estates, in order to secure the enjoy- 
ment of this vista, as it was called in the days of Horace 
Walpole. The windows of this summer-house looked down 
the wide avenue to the high-road, a distance of a little more 
than a quarter of a mile. 

This summer-house had always been a favorite resort of 
Mrs. Sinclair's. It overlooked the home of her youth, and 
she liked it on that account, for although Davenant Avas by 
far the more beautiful estate, she loved Marchbrook best. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

“grief fills the room up of my absent child.^^ 

Sir Cyprian had told himself that, in coming to March- 
brook, nothing was further from his thoughts than the de- 
sire to see Constance Sinclair; yet now that he Avas so near 
her, now that he was assured of her unhappiness, the yearn- 
ing for one brief meeting, one look into the sweet eyes, one 
pressure of the gentle hand that used to lie so trustingly in 
his own, grew upon him hourly, until he felt that he could 
not leave Marchbrook without having seen her. No motive, 
no thought that could have shadowed the purity of Gilbert 
Sinclair’s wife, had his soul’s desire been published to the 
world, blended Avith this yearning of Sir Cyprian’s. Deep- 
est pity and compassion moved him. Such sorrow, such 
loneliness as Constance Sinclair’s, were unutterably sacred 
to the man who had loved and surrendered Constance Clan- 
yarde. 

Sir Cyprian lingered at Marchbrook, and spent the greater 
part of his days in riding or walking over familiar grounds. 
He was too much out of spirits to join Lord Clanyarde ia 


lOG 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


the slaughter of innocent birds, and was not a little bored 
by that frivolous old gentleman^s society in the winter even- 
ings by the fire in the comfortable bachelor smoking-room 
— the only really snug apartment in that great bare house. 
Every night Sir Cyprian made up his mind to depart next 
morning, yet when morning came he still lingered. 

One bright, bleak day, when there were flying snow- 
storms and intervals of sun and blue sky. Sir Cyprian — hav- 
ing actually packed his portmanteau and made arrange- 
ments for being driven to the station to catch an afternoon 
train — took a final ramble in Marchbrook park. He had 
not once put his foot on the soil that had been his, but he 
could get a peep at the old place across the railings. There 
was a melancholy pleasure in looking at those wintery glades, 
the young fir-trees, the scudding rabbits, the screaming 
pheasants, the withered bracken. 

The sun had been shining a few minutes ago. Down 
came the snow in a thick driving shower, almost blinding 
Sir Cyprian as he walked swiftly along the oak fence. 
Presently he found himself at the end of the Monks^ Ave- 
nue, and under the classic temple which was said to be 
built upon the very spot where the Benedictines once had 
their chapel. 

Ten 3’ears ago that temple had been Cyprian Davenant's 
summer retreat. He had made it his smoking-room and 
study; had read Thucydides and the Greek dramatists there 
in the long vacation: had read those books of modern travel 
which had fired his mind with a longing for the adventures, 
perils, and triumphs of the African explorer. Twenty 
years ago it had been his mother^s chosen resort. He had 
spent many a summer morning, many a pensive twilight, 
there by his mother^s side, watching her sketch or hearing 
her play. The old-fashioned square piano was there still, 
perhaps, and the old engravings on the walls. 

‘‘ Poor old place, he thought: I wonder if any one ever 
goes there now, or if it is quite given up to bats and owls, 
and the spirits of the deadr^^ 

He stopped under the stone balcony which overhung 
Marchbrook, on a level with the eight-foot wall. In Gil- 
bert Sinclair’s — or his architect’s — plan of improvements 
this classic summer-house, a relic of a departed taste, had 
been forgotten. Sir Cyprian was glad to find it unchanged, 
unchanged in any wise, save that it had a more forlorn and 


107 


WEAVERS AND WEFT.^ 

neglected air than of old. The stone-work of the balcony 
was green and gray with mosses and lichens. The frame- 
work of the' window had not been painted for a quarter 
of a century. The ivy had wandered as it listed over 
brick-work and stone, darting sharp-forked tongues of 
green into the crevices of the decaying mortar. Sir Cyprian 
looked up at the well-remembered window, full of thoughts 
of the past. 

“ Does she ever come here, I wonder? he said to him- 
self; “ or do they use the old place for a tool-house or an 
apple shed?’’ 

Hardly, for there fell upon his ear a few bars of plaintive 
symphony, played on a piano of ancient tone — the pensive 
Bro^wood dear to his childhood — and then a voice, the 
pure and sweet contralto he knew too well, began Lord 
Houghton’s pathetic ballad, Strangers Yet.” 

He listens as if he lived but to hear. Oh, what pathos, 
what profound melancholy in that voice, pouring out its 
sweetness to the silent wall! Regret, remorsp, sorrow, too 
great for common language to express, are breathed in 
that flood of melody. And when the song is done the sing- 
er’s hands fall on the. keys in a crashing chord, and a wild 
cry — the sudden utterance of uncontrollable despair — goes 
up to heaven. 

She is there — so near him — alone in her anguish. She, 
the only woman he has ever truly loved, the woman for 
whom he would give his life as freely as he would spill a 
cup of water upon the ground, and with as little thought 
of the sacrifice. 

The lower edge of the balcony is within reach of his 
hand. The century-old ivy would afford easy footing for a 
less skilled athlete. To climb the ascent is as simple as to 
mount the rigging of his yacht. 

In a minute, before he had time to think, he was in the 
balcony, he had opened the French window, he was stand- 
ing in the room. 

Constance Sinclair sat by the piano, her arms folded on 
the shabby old mahogany lid, her drooping head resting on 
her arms, her face hidden. She was too deeply lost in 
that agony of hopeless grief to hear the rattling of the frail 
casement, the footstep on the floor. 

Constance!” 


108 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


She started up and confronted him, pale as ashes, with 
a smothered scream. 

“ My dearest, I heard your grief. I could not keep away. 
Only for a few minutes, Constance, only for a few words, 
and I will leave you. Oh, my love, how changed, how 
changed!^’ 

A flood of crimson rushed into the pale face, and as 
quickly faded. Then she gave him her hand, with an in- 
nocent frankness that went to his heart, so like the Con- 
stance of old — the pure and perfect type of girlhood that 
knows not sin. 

“Ido not mind your hearing me in my sorrow, she 
said, sadly. “ I come here because I feel myself away from 
all the world. At the house servants come to my room 
with messages, and worry me. Would I like this? Will I 
do the. other? What carriage will I drive in? At what 
time? A hundred questions that are so tiresome when one 
is tired of life. Here I can lock my door, and feel as much 
alone as in a desert. 

“ But, dear Mrs. Sinclair, it is not good for you to 
abandon yourself to such grief. 

“ How can I help it? ‘ Grief Alls the room up of my 
absent child!’ ” with a sad smile. “ You heard of my loss, 
did you not? The darling who made life so bright for me 
— snatched away in a moment — not one hour’s warning. I 
woke that morning a proud and happy mother, and at 
night — No, no one can imagine such a grief as that.” 

“ I have heard the sad story. But be sure Heaven will 
send comfort — new hopes — ” 

“ Don’t talk to me like that. Oh, if you knew how I 
have had Heaven and the Bible thrown at my head — by 
people who talk by rote! I can read my Bible. I read of 
David and his great despair; how he turned his face to the 
wall, how he wept again for Absalom; and of the Shuna- 
mite woman who said, ‘It is well;’ but David had many 
children, and the Shunamite’s child was given back to her. 
God will not give my darling back to me. ” 

“ He will — in heaven.” 

“ But my heart is breaking for want of her here. She 
will be an angel before the throne of God — not my Christa- 
bel. ^ I want my darling as she was on earth, with her soft ' 
clinging arms — not always good — naughty sometimes — but 
always dearer than my life. ” 


WEA.YERS AND WEFT. 


109 


What could Sir Cyprian say to comfort this bereaved 
heart? He could only sit down quietly by Constance Sin- 
clair's side, and win her to talk of her sorrow, far more 
freely and confidingly than she had talked to her father; 
and this he felt was something gained. There was com- 
fort in this free speech — comfort in pouring her sorrow into 
the ear of a friend who could verily sj^mpathize. 

“ Dear Mrs. Sinclair/^ said Sir Cyprian, gravely, when 
he had allowed her to tell the story of her bereavement, 
“ as a very old friend — one who has your w’elfare deep at 
heart — I must entreat you to struggle against this absorbing 
grief. I have seen our old friend Doctor AVebb, and he 
assures me that unless you make an effort to overcome this 
melancholy, your mind as well as your body will suffer. 
Yes, Constance, reason itself may give way under the bur- 
den you impose upon it. Perhaps no one else would have 
the courage to speak to you so plainly, but I venture to 
speak as a brother might to a fondly loved sister. This 
may be our last meeting, for I shall go back to Africa as 
soon as l ean get my party together again. You will try, 
dear friend, will you not, for my sake, for the sake of your 
husband — 

“ My husband!’^ she exclaimed, with a shudder. ‘‘ He 
has billiards, and guns, and race-horses, and friends with- 
out number. What can it matter to him that I grieve for 
my child ? Somebody had need be sorry. He does not 
care. 

‘‘ Constance, it would matter very much to your father, 
to all who have ever loved you, to yourself most of all, if 
you should end your life in a lunatic asylum. 

This startled her, and she looked up at him earnestly. 

“ Unreasonable grief sometimes leads to madness. De- 
spair is rebellion against God. If the Shunamite in that 
dark day could say, ‘It shall be well, ^ shall a Christian 
have less patience — a Christian who has been taught that 
those who mourn are blessed, and shall be comforted. 
Have faith in that divine promise, and all will be well.^^ 

“ I will try,^’ she answered, gently. “ It is very good of 
you to reason with me. No one else has spoken so frankly. 
They have only talked platitudes, and begged me to divert 
my mind. As if acted charades, or billiards, or besique, 
could fill up the gap in my life. Are you really going to 
Africa very soon?'^ 


110 WEAVERS AND WEFT. 

Early in the new year, perhaps; but I shall not go till 
I have heard from some reliable source that you are happy. 

‘‘ You must not wait for that. I shall never know hap- 
piness again in this world. At most I can but try to bear 
my lot patiently and put on cheerful looks. I shall try to 
do that, believe me. Your lessons shall not be wasted. 
And now I suppose we must say good-bye, looking at her 
watch; it is time for me to go back to the house. ^ ^ 

I will not detain you; but before I go I must apologize 
for my burglarious entrance by that window. I hope I did 
not frighten you?^^ 

I was only startled. It seemed almost a natural thing 
to see you here. I remember how fond you were of this 
summer-house when I was a child. I have so often seen 
you sitting in that window smoking and reading.'^ 

“Yes, I have spent many an hour here puzzling over 
the choruses in ‘ Prometheus,^ and I have looked up from 
my book to see you scamper by on your pony. ” 

“ Pepper, the gray one,^' cried Constance, absolutely 
smiling; “such a dear pony! We used to feedliim with 
bread and apples every morning. Ah, what happy days 
those were!’^ 

It touched him to the core of his heart to see the old girl- 
ish look come back in all its brightness. But it was only a 
transient gleam of the old light which left a deeper sadness 
when it faded. 

“ Good-bye, Constance,^ ^ he said, taking both her hands. 
“ I may call you that for the last time.^^ 

“ Yes, and when you are in Africa — in another world, 
far from all the false pretenses and sham pleasures that 
make up life in this — think of me as Constance, the Con- 
stance you knew in the days that are gone — not as Gilbert 
Sinclair's wife.^’ 

He bent his head over the unresisting hands and kissed 
them. 

“ God bless you and comfort you, my Constance, and 
give you as much happiness as I lost when I made up my 
mind to live without you!’^ 

He opened the window, and swung himself lightly down 
from the balcony to the turf below. 


WEAVERS AN'D WEET. 


Ill 


CHAPTER XVIL 

A BALCOl^Y SCENE. 

Gilbert Sinclair and his chosen set — the half dozen 
turfy gentlemen with whom he was united by the closest 
bond of sympathy — had spent this December morning 
agreeably enough at a rustic steeple-chase nine miles from 
Davenant. The race was an event of the most insignifi- 
cant order — unchronicled in Ruff — but there was pleasure 
in the drive to and fro on Mr. Sinclair's drag through the 
keen frosty air, with an occasional diversion in the shape of 
a flying snow-storm, which whitened the men's rough over- 
coats, and hung on their beards and whiskers. 

Just at the hour in which Sir Cyprian and Constance 
were bidding each other a long good-bye, Mr. Sinclair was 
driving his sorrel team back to Davenant at a slashing pace. 
He and his friends had enjoyed themselves very thoroughly 
at the homely farmers' meeting. The sharp north wind 
had given a keen edge to somewhat jaded appetites, and 
game pie, anchovy sandwiches, cold grouse, and boar's head 
iiad been dully appreciated, with an ab libitum accompani- 
ment of dry champagne, bitter beer, and Copenhagen kir- 
schen wasser. 

The gentlemen's spirits had been improved by the morn- 
ing's sport, and the homeward drive was hilarious. It was 
now between three and four o'clock. There would be time 
for a quiet smoke, or a game at pyramids, and a fresh toilet 
before afternoon tea, opined such of the gentlemen as still 
held by that almost exploded superstition, a taste for ladies' 
society. The more masculine spirits preferred to smoke 
their Trabucas or Infantas by the harness-room fire, with 
the chance of getting the straight tip " out of somebody 
else's groom. 

James Wyatt was the only member of the party whose 
spirits were not somewhat unduly elated, but then Mr. 
Wyatt was an outsider, only admitted on sufferance into 
that chosen band, as a fellow who might be useful on an 
emergency, and whom it was well to “ square " by an oc- 
casional burst of civility. He was one of those dangerous 
men who are always sober, and find out everybody else's 


112 


WEAVERS AKD W^EFT. 


weak points without ever revealing his own. He was Sin- 
clair's dme damnee, however, and one must put up with him. 

Gilbert was driving, with Sir Thomas Houndslow, a 
gentleman of turf celebrity, and late captain of a cavalry 
regiment, next him, smoking furiously, while Mr. Wyatt 
sat behind the two, and joined freely in their conversation,, 
which inclined to the boisterous. How calm that smooth, 
level voice of his sounded after the strident tones of his 
companions, thickened ever so slightly by champagne and 
kirschen wasser! 

The chief talk was of horses— the sorrels Gilbert was now 
driving — the horses they had seen that morning — with an 
inexhaustible series of anecdotes about horses that had been 
bought and sold, and bred, and exchanged, including the 
story of a rheumatic horse, which was a splendid goer in 
his intervals of good health, and was periodically sold by his 
owner, and taken back again at half-price when the fit 
came on. 

James Wyatt admired the landscape, an enthusiasm 
which his companions looked down upon contemptuously 
from the serene height of a stolid indifference to art and 
nature. 

‘‘ There ^s a glade,^^ cried the solicitor, pointing to an 
opening in the undulating woodland, where the snow- 
wreathed trees were like a picture of fairy-land. 

“ Pretty tidy timber,'^ assented Sir Thomas Houndslow j 

but for my part I could never see anything in trees to go 
into raptures about, except when youVe sold "’em to a tim- 
ber merchant. ShouldnT like to see cremation come into 
fashion, by the bye. ] t would spoil the coffin trade and 
depreciate the value of my elms and oaks. 

As they approached Marchbrook Mr. Wyatt began to talk 
about the Benedictines and their vanished monastery. He 
had found out all about it in the county history — its 
founder, the extent of its lands, the character of its archi- 
tecture. 

‘‘ That avenue must be six hundred years old,^^ he said,, 
as they came in sight of the tall elms. 

“ By Jove! that^s queer,^^ cried Sir Thomas, pulling out 
his race glass. “A fellow jumped out of that balcony, like 
Eomeo in the play. 

“ Except that Borneo never scaled the balcony,^ ^ said Mr. 
Wyatt. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


113 


That summer-house belongs to Davenant, doesiiT it, 
Gilbert? Our friend^s mode of exit suggests a flirtation 
between one of 3"Our guests and somebody at Marchbrook. 

“ There ^s nobody at Marchbrook but old Clanyarde and 
Sir Cyprian Davenant/’ said Sir Thomas, “and ITl lay 
any odds you like it wasn^’t Lord Clanyarde jumped off that 
balcony. ^ ^ 

Gilbert took the glass from his friend^s hand without a 
word. The man who had jumped off the balcony was still 
in sight, walking at a leisurely pace across the wide alley 
of turf between the two rows of trees. The glass brought 
him near enough for recognition, and Mr. Sinclair had no 
doubt as to his identity. 

“ If you lay on to those leaders like that, you fll have this 
blessed machine in a ditch, cried Sir Thomas Houndslow. 
“ What^s the matter with you? The horses are stepping 
like clock-work. 

“ Juno was breaking into a canter,^^ said Gilbert, color- 
ing. “ Quiet, old lady; steady, steady.^^ 

“ Slie^s steady enough,^^ said Sir Thomas; “ I think it^s 
you that are wild. Memorandum, donT drink kirschen 
wasser after champagne when you^re going to drive a team 
of young horses. 

Mr. Sinclair took the curve by the park gates in excellent 
style, despite this insinuation, and pulled up before the old 
Gothic porch with workman-like precision. 

“ That^s a very pretty bit of feather-edging,^’ said Sir 
Thomas, approvingly. 

Gilbert did not wait to see his friends alight, but flung 
the reins to one of the grooms, and walked off without a 
word to any one. 

He was at the summer-house ten minutes afterward, 
flushed and breathless, having run all the way. A flight 
of stone steps, moss-grown and broken, led up to the door 
of the tdmple. 

Gilbert Sinclair tried the door and found it locked. 

“ Is there any one in there?” he asked, shaking the crazy 
old door savagely. 

“ Who is that?” inquired Constance. 

“ Your husband.” 

He heard her light footsteps coming toward the door. 
She opened it, and faced him on the threshold, with neither 
surprise nor fear in her calm, questioning face. 


114 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


Is there anything the matter, Gilbert? Ami wanted: 

“ There is not much the matter, and I doiiT know that 
you are wanted in my house,’" answered her husband, sav- 
agely. “ It seems to me that your vocation is elsewhere. ” 

His flushed face, the angry light in his red-brown eyes, 
told her that there was meaning in his reply, incomprehensi- 
ble as it seemed. 

‘‘ I don’t understand you, Gilbert. What has happened 
to make you angry? 

“Not much, perhaps. It’s bad form to make a fuss 
about it. But I am vulgar enough to think that when my 
wife plays Juliet to somebody else’s Romeo, it is time she 
should call herself by some other name than mine, which 
she disgraces. I admire the innocence of that astonished 
look. Unfortunately that piece of finished acting is thrown 
away upon me. I saw your lover leave you.” 

“ Mr. Sinclair!” with a look of unspeakable indignation. 

“ Yes, your gentle Romeo forgot that this summer-house 
is seen from the high-road. I saw him, I tell you, woman 
— I saw him leap down from the balcony — identified him 
with my field-glass — not that I had any doubt who your 
visitor was.'” 

‘ ‘ I am sorry that you should be so angry at my seeing 
an old friend for a few minutes, Gilbert, and that you 
should make so very innocent an act an excuse for insult- 
ing me.” 

“ An old friend — a friend whom you meet clandestinely 
— in an out-of-the-way corner of the park — with locked 
doors. ” 

“ I have spent all my mornings here of late. I lock my 
door in order to be undisturbed, so that anybody happening 
to come this way may believe the summer-house empty. " 

“ Any one except Sir Uyprian Davenant. He would 
know better. ” 

“ Sir Cyprian’s presence here to-day was the merest ac- 
cident. He heard me singing, and climbed up to the bal- 
cony to say a few kind words about my bereavement, which 
he knows to be the one absorbing thought of my mind just 
now. No friend, no brother, could have come with kinder 
or purer meaning. He gave ‘me good advice: Re warned 
me that there was selfishness and folly in giving way to sor- 
row. Not one word was spoken which you might not have 
freely heard, Gilbert, which you would not have approved. ” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


115 


“ Could any woman in your position say less? You all 
sing the same song. Once having made up your mind to 
betray your husband, the rest is a matter of detail, and 
there is a miserable sameness in the details. Do you think 
anything you can say — oaths, tears— will ever convince me 
that you did not come here on purpose to meet that man, 
or that he came here to preach you a sermon upon your 
duty to me?^^ 

“ Gilbert, as I stand here, before God who sees and hears 
me, I have told you the truth. We have made a sad mis- 
take in marrying; there are few things in which we sympa- 
thize; even our great sorrow has not brought us nearer 
together; but if you will only be patient, if you will be kind 
and true to me, I will still try even more earnestly than I 
have done yet to make you a good wife, to make your home 
life happy. 

She came to him with a sad, sweet smile, and laid her 
hand gently on his shoulder, looking up at him with earnest 
eyes, full of truth and purity, could he but have understood 
their meaning. 

Alas! to his dogged, brutal nature, purity like this was 
incomprehensible. Facts were against his wife, and he had 
na belief in her to sustain him against the facts. The lion 
of fable might recognize Una^s purity and lie down at her 
feet, but Gilbert Sinclair was a good deal more like the lion 
of reality, a by no means magnanimous beast, who waits 
till he can pounce upon his enemy alone in a solitary cor- 
ner, and has a prudent dread of numbers. 

As the little hand alighted tremulously on his breast, Gil- 
bert Sinclair raised his clinched fist. 

“Let me alone, he cried. “ YouVe made your 
choice.'’^ 

And then came a word which had never before been 
spoken in Constance Sinclair's hearing, but which some in- 
stinct of her woman^s heart told her meant deepest infamy. 

She recoiled from him with a little cry, and then fell like 
a log at his feet. 

Lest that brutal word should too weakly express an out- 
raged husband ’s wrath, Mr. Sinclair had emphasized it with 
a blow. That muscular fist of his, trained in many an en- 
counter with professors of the noble art of self-defense, had 
been driven straight at his wife’s white forehead, and noth- 


116 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


ing but the man^s blind fury had prevented the blow being 
mortal. 

In intention, at least, he had been for the moment a 
murderer. His breath came thick and fast as he stood over 
that lifeless form. 

“ Have I killed her?” he asked himself. ‘‘ She deserves 
no better fate. But I had rather kill 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

CYPRIAN^S VISITOR. 

Sir Cyprian Davenant left Marchbrook an hour after 
his interview with Constance Sinclair. He sent his man 
home with the portmanteaus and gun-cases, and went 
straight to his club, where he dined. It was between eight 
and nine when he walked to his chambers through the 
snowy streets. The walk through the rough weather suited 
his present temper. He could have walked many a mile 
across a Yorkshire moor that night in the endeavor to walk 
down the anxious thoughts that crowded upon his mind. 

His interview with Constance — like all such meetings 
between those whom Fate has irrevocably parted — had 
deepened the gloom of his soul, and added to the bitterness 
of His regrets. It had brought the past nearer to him, and 
made the inevitable harder to bear than it had seemed yes- 
terday. 

He had seen all the old loveliness in the innocent face, 
changed though it was. He had heard all the old music 
in the unforgotten voice. To what end? That brief greet- 
ing across the iron grate of Destiny’s prison-house only 
made it more agonizing to think of the long future in which 
these two, who had so met and touched hands across the 
gulf, must live their separated lives in silent patience. 

The snow lay thick in the quiet turning out of the 
Strand. There was a hansom standing at the corner by Sir 
Cyprian’s chambers, the horse hanging his head with a de- 
jected air under his whitened rug, the man stamping up 
and down the pavement, and flapping his arms across his 
chest. The cab must have been waiting some time. Sir 
Cyprian thought idly. 

His chambers were on the first floor, large and lofty 
rooms facing the river. Since his inheritance of Colonel 


WEAVERS AtrD WEFT. 


117 


Gryffin^s fortune he had indulged himself with that one 
luxury dear to men who love books, a well-arranged library. 
This hQ,(ihQ\ox 2ned-a-ierre suited him better than lodgings 
in a more fashionable quarter. It was central, and out of 
the way of his fashionable acquaintance — an ineligible feat- 
ure which was to his mind an attraction. 

Sir Cyprian admitted himself with his latch-key, and 
went up the dimly lighted staircase. He opened the outer 
door of his library, within which massive oak barrier there 
hung a heavy crimson cloth curtain, shutting out noise and 
draught. This curtain had been dragged aside, and left 
hanging in a heap at one end of the rod, in a. very different 
style from the usual neat arrangement of folds left by the 
middle-aged valet. 

The room was almost in darkness, for the fire had burned 
low upon the hearth. There was just light enough to show 
Sir Cyprian a figure sitting by the fire in a brooding atti- 
tude, alone, and in the dark. 

“ Who’s that?’^ asked Sir Cyprian. 

The man started up, a big man, tall and broad-shoul- 
dered, whom for the first moment Sir Cyprian took for a 
stranger. 

I should have thought you would have known Con- 
stance Sinclair’s husband anywhere,” said the intruder. 

You and I have good reason to remember each other.” 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Sinclair,” Cyprian answered, 
quietly, without noticing the sneer; “ but as I do not pos- 
sess the gift of seeing in the dark, you can hardly wonder 
at my being slow to recognize you. ” 

He was not going to invite a quarrel with this man — ■ 
nay, he would rather avoid one even at some loss of per- 
sonal dignity, for Constance’s sake. He went up to the 
hearth, where Gilbert had resumed his seat, and put his 
hand on the bell. 

‘‘ Don’t ring for lights,” said Sinclair. “ What I have 
to say can be said in the dark.” 

‘‘ Perhaps. But I prefer to see a man’s face when I’m 
talking to him. May I ask to what I am indebted for this 
unexpected pleasure.^ I thought you were at Davenant. ” 

‘‘ I left by the train after that in which you traveled.” 

The man came in with a lighted lamp, which he placed 
on the table in front of the fire— a large carved oak table, 
loaded with classic volumes and ponderous lexicons; for a 


118 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


wealthy student is rarely content with a single lexicogra- 
pher’s definition. 

Having set down the lamp, the valet replenished the ex- 
hausted fire with that deliberate care so peculiar to a serv- 
ant who is slightly curious about his master’s guest, and 
finally retired, with soft footfall, shutting the door after 
him very slowly, as if he expected to gather something at 
the last moment, from the visitor’s impatience to break 
covert. 

In this case, however, the valet retired without hearing a 
word. Gilbert Sinclair sat staring at the fire, and seemed 
in no hurry to state his business. He could not fly at his 
enemy’s throat like a tiger, and that was about the only thing 
to which his spirit moved him at this moment. Looking 
at his visitor by the soft clear light of the lamp. Sir 
Cyprian was not reassured by his countenance. Gilbert 
Sinclair’s face was of a livid hue, save on each high cheek- 
bone, where a patch of dusky red made the pervading pal- 
lor more obvious. His thick red-brown hair was rough 
and disordered, his large red-brown eyes, prominently 
placed in their orbits, were bright and glassy, and the 
sensual under lip worked convulsively, as in some inward 
argument of a stormy kind. 

For some minutes-^three or four, perhaps, and so brief 
a space of time makes a longish pause in a critical situation 
— Gilbert Sinclair kept silence. Sir Cyprian, standing 
with his back against one end of the velvet-covered man- 
tel-piece, waited with polite tranquillity. Not by a word 
or gesture did he attempt to hurry his guest. 

“ Look you here. Sir Cyprian,” Gilbert began, at last, with 
savage abruptness. ‘‘If we had lived in the dueling days 
— the only days when Englishmen were gentlemen — I 
should have sent a friend to you to-night instead of com- 
ing myself, and the business might have been arranged in 
the easiest manner possible, and settled decisively before 
breakfast to-morrow. But as our new civilization does not 
allow of that kind of thing, and as I haven’t quite strong 
enough evidence to go into the Divorce Court, I thought it 
was better to come straight to you and give you fair warn- 
ing of what you may expect in the future.” 

“ Let us suppose that dueling is not an exploded custom. 
We have France, and Belgium, and a few other countries 
at our disposal if we should make up our minds to fight. 


WEAVERS WEFT. 


119 


But I should like to know the ground of our quarrel before 
we go into details. 

am glad you are man enough to fight me/^ answered 
the other, savagely. “ I don^t think you can require to be 
told why I should like to kill you; or if you have been in 
doubt about it up to this moment, you will know pretty 
clearly when I tell you that I saw you jump off the balcony 
of my wife^s summer-house this afternoon.^’ 

1 am sorry that unceremonious exit should offend you. 
I had no other way of getting back to Marchbrook in time 
for my train. I should have had to walk the whole width 
of Davenant Park and about a mile of high-road if I had 
left by the summer-house door. 

‘‘ And you think it a gentleman-like thing to be in my 
neighborhood for a fortnight, to avoid my house, and to 
meet my wife clandestinely in a lonely corner of myparkr^^ 

“ There was no clandestine meeting. You insult your 
wife by such a supposition, and prove— if proof were need- 
ed of so obvious a fact — your unworthiness of such a wife. 
My visit to the summer-house was purely accidental. I 
heard Mrs. Sinclair singing — heard the bitter cry which 
grief — a mother’s sacred grief — wrung from her in her soli- 
tude, .and followed the impulse of the moment, which 
prompted me to console a lady whom I knew and loved 
when she was a child. ” 

“ And, afterward, when she had ceased to be a child — a 
few months before she became my wife. Your attachment 
was pretty well known to the world in general, I believe. 
It was only I who was left in ignorance.” 

‘‘ You might easily have known what the world knew — 
all there was to be known — simply nothing.” 

‘‘You deny that you have done me any wrong? that I 
have any right to ask you to fight me?” 

“ Most emphatically, and I most distinctly refuse to 
make a quarrel on any ground connected with your wife. 
But you will not find me slow to resent an insult should 
you be so ill-ad visec^ as to provoke me. As the friend of 
Constance Clanyarde I shall be very ready to take up the 
cudgels for Constance Sinclair, even against her husband. 
Eemember this, Mr. Sinclair, and remember that any 
wrong done to Lord Olanyarde’s daughter will be a wrong 
that I shall revenge with all the power God has given me. 
She is not left solely to her husband’s tender mercies. ” 


120 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


Even the dull red hue faded from Gilbert Sinclair's 
cheeks as he confronted the indignant speaker, and left him 
livid to the very lips. There was a dampness on his fore- 
head, too, when he brushed his large strong hand across it. 

“ Is the man a craven? thought Sir Cyprian, remark- 
ing these signs of agitation and fear. 

“ Well,^^ said Sinclair, drawing a long breath, sup- 
pose there is no more to be said. You both tell the same 
story — an innocent meeting, not preconcerted — mere acci- 
dent. Yes, you have the best of me this time. The un- 
lucky husband generally has the worst of it. There^s no 
dishonor in lying to him. He^s out of court, poor beggar. 

“ Mr. Sinclair, do you want me to throw you out of that 
window?^^ 

I shouldnT much care if you did."’"’ 

There was a sullen misery in the answer and in the very 
look of the man as he sat there beside his enemy's hearth 
in the attitude of dull apathy, onl}^ looking up at intervals 
from his vacant stare at the fire, which touched Cyprian 
Davenant with absolute pity. Here was a man to whom 
Eate had given vast capabilities of happiness, and who had 
wantonly thrown away all that is fairest and best in life. 

“ Mr. Sinclair, upon my honor, I am sorry for you,'^ he 
said, gravely. “ Sorry for your incapacity to believe in a 
noble and pure-minded wife; sorry that you should poison 
your own life and your wife^s by doubts that would never 
enter your mind if you had the power to understand her. 
Go home, and let your wife never know the wrong you 
have done her. 

“ My wife! What wife? I have no wife,” said Sinclair, 
with a strange smile rising, and going to the door. “ Thak’s 
what some fellow says in a play, I think. Good-night, Sir 
Cyprian Davenant, and when next we meet I hope it may 
be on a better-defined footing. ” 

He left the room without another word. Before Sir 
Cypriaiks bell had summoned the smooth-faced valet, the 
street door shut with a bang, and Gilbert Sinclair was gone. 
Sir Cyprian heard the doors of the hansom clapped to, and 
the smack of the weary driver’s whip, as the wheels rolled 
up the silent street. 

“ What did he mean by that speech about his wife?’^ 
wondered Sir Cyprian. “ The man looked like a mur- 
derer!” He did not know that at this moment Gilbert 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


121 


Sinclair was half afraid that brutal blow of his might have 
been fatal. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

MRS. WALSINGHAM BREAKS FAITH. 

Christmas, which, in a common way, brings life and 
bustle, and the gathering of many guests to good old coun- 
try-houses, brought only gloom and solitude to Davenant. 
Mr. Sinclair's visitors had departed suddenly, at a single 
flight, like swallows before a storm in autumn. Mrs. Sin- 
clair was very ill — seriously ill — mysteriously ill. Her dear- 
est friends shook their heads and looked awful things when 
they talked of her. It was mental, they feared. 

“Poor dear thing! This comes of Lord Clanyarde's 
greediness in getting rich husbands for all his daughters. 

“ The old man is a regular harpy,^^ exclaimed Mrs. Mil- 
lamount, with a charming indifference to detail. 

And then these fashionable swallows skimmed away to 
fresh woods and pastures new — or rather fresh billiard- 
rooms and other afternoon teas, evening part songs, and 
morning rides in rustic English lanes, where there is beauty 
and fragrance even in midwinter. 

Constance had been missing at afternoon tea on the day 
of Gilbert’s sudden journey to London, but her absence in 
the cozy morning-room, where Mrs. Millamount amused 
the circle by the daring eccentricity of her discourse, was 
hardly a subject of wonder. 

“ She has one of her nervous headaches, no doubt, poor 
child,” said Mrs. Millamount, taking possession of the tea- 
tray; “ she is just the kind of woman to have nervous 
headaches.” 

“I’ll give long odds you don’t have them,” said Sir 
Thomas Houndslow, who was lolling with his back against 
the mantel-piece to the endangerment of the porcelain that 
adorned it. 

“ Never had headache but once in my life, and that was 
when I came a cropper in the Quorn country,” replied 
Mrs. Millamount, graciously. 

Vapors have given way to feminine athletics, and there is 
nothing now so dowdy or unfashionable as bad health. 

AVhen the dressing-bell rang and Mrs. Sinclair was still 


122 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


absent, Melanie Duport began to think there was- some 
cause for alarm. Her mistress was punctual and orderly 
in all her habits. She had gone to walk in the park imme- 
diately after luncheon, quite three hours ago. She had no 
idea of going beyond the park, Melanie knew, as she only 
wore her seal-skin jacket and a garden hat. She might 
have gone to Marchbrook, perhaps, in this careless attire, 
but not anywhere else; and her visits to Marchbrook were 
very rare. 

Melanie was puzzled. She went down-stairs and sent a 
couple of grooms in quest of her mistress. The gardeners 
had all gone home at five o’clock. 

You had better look in the summer-house by the fir 
plantation,” said Melanie. ‘‘ I know Mrs. Sinclair spends 
a deal of her time there. ” 

The young men took the hint, and went straight ofi to 
the summer-house together, too social to take different 
directions, as Melanie had told them to do. They had 
plenty to talk about — the way their master was going it, 
the bad luck which had attended his racing stable lately, 
and so on. 

“ I think there’s a curse on them buildings at Newmar- 
ket,” said one of the men. ‘‘We haven’t pulled off so 
much as a beggarly plate since they was finished.” 

“ There’s a curse on buying half-breed colts,” retorted 
the older and wiser servant. “ That’s where the curse is, 
Rogers — mistaken economy. ” 

The classic temple was wrapped in darkness, and Rogers, 
who entered first, stumbled over the prostrate form of his 
mistress. She lay just as she had fallen at her husband’s 
feet, felled by his savage blow. 

The elder man got a light out of his fusee box, and then 
they lifted the senseless figure into a chair, and looked at 
the white face on which there were ghastly streaks of 
blood. Mrs. Sinclair groaned faintly as they raised her 
from the ground, and this was a welcome sound, for they 
had almost thought her dead. 

There were some flowers in a vase on the table, and the 
elder groom dipped a handkerchief in the water and dabbed 
it on Mrs. Sinclair’s forehead. 

“ I wish I’d got a drop of spirit in my pocket,” he said; 
“ a sup of brandy might bring her round, perhaps. Look 
about if you can see anything in that way, Rogers.” 


WEAVERS AN^D WEFT. 


123 


Eogers looked, but alcohol being an unknown want to 
Mrs. Sinclair, there was no convenient bottle to be found 
in the summer-house. She murmured something inarticu- 
late, and the locked lips loosened and trembled faintly as 
the groom bathed her forehead. 

“ Poor thing, she must have had a fit,^^ said the elder 
man. 

‘‘Apocalyptic, perhaps,^-' suggested Eogers. 

“ We^’d better carry her back to the house between us. 
She^s only a feather-weight, poor little thing. ” 

So the two grooms conveyed Mrs. Sinclair gently and 
carefully back to Davenant, and contrived to carry her up 
to her room by the servants^ staircase without letting all 
the house into the secret. 

“ If it was a fit, she won^t like it talked about, said the 
head groom to the housekeeper, as he. refreshed himself 
with a glass of Glenlivat after his exertions. 

“ Master ^s gone up to London, too, said the house- 
keeper; “ that makes it awkward, don^t it? I should 
think somebody ought to telegraph. 

Melanie Duport took charge of her mistress with a self- 
possession that would have done credit to an older woman. 

She sei^t off at once for Dr. Webb, who came post-haste 
to his most important patient. 

The doctor found his patient weak and low, and her 
mind wandering a little. He was much puzzled by that 
contusion on the fair forehead, but Constance could give 
him no explanation. 

“ I think I fell,^^ she said. “ It was kind of him to come 
to me, wasnT it, for the love of old times 

“ It must have been a very awkward fall,^^ said Dr. 
Webb to Melanie. “ Where did it happenr^^ 

Melanie explained how her mistress had been found in 
the summer-house. 

“ She must have fallen against some piece of furniture, 
something with a blunt edge. It was an awful blow. She 
is very low, poor thing. The system has received a severe 
shock. 

And then Dr. Webb enjoined the greatest care, and ques- 
tioned Melanie as to her qualifications for the post of nurse. 
Mrs. Sinclair was not to be left all night, and some one 
else must be got to-morrow to relieve Melanie. It was 
altogether a serious case. 


124 


WEAYEKS AED WEET. 


Gilbert Sinclair returned next morning, haggard and 
gloomy, looking like a man who had spent his night at the 
gaming table with fortune steadily adverse to him. He met 
Hr. Webb in the hall, and was told that his wife was seri- 
ously ill. 

“ Not in danger?’^ he asked, eagerly. 

‘‘ Not in immediate danger.''^ 

“ I thank God for that.^^ 

It seemed a small thing to be thankful for, since the sur- 
geon’s tone was not very hopeful, but Gilbert Sinclair had 
been weighed down by the apprehension of something 
worse than this. He found James Wyatt alone in the bil- 
liard-room, and learned from him that his guests were 
already on the wing. 

Three days later and Mr. Wyatt had also left Havenant,, 
but not for good. He had promised to run down again in 
a week or so, and to cheer his dear friend, who, although 
always treating him more or less de liaiit en has, allowed 
him to see pretty plainly that he was indispensable to his 
patron’s contentment. And your modern Umbra will put 
up with a good deal of snubbing when he knows his patron 
is under his thumb. 

Unfashionable as was the season, Mrs. Walsingham was 
still in town. !She had no rustic retreat of her own, and 
she was not in that charmed circle, patrician or millionaire, 
which rejoices in country-houses. Furthermore, she ab- 
horred the beauties of nature, and regarded winter resi- 
dence in the country as an exile bleaker than Ovid’s ban- 
ishment to chill and savage Tomis. If she had been rich 
enough to have indulged her caprices, she would have gen- 
erally begun the year in Paris; but she had an income 
which just enabled her to live elegantly without any in- 
dulgence of caprices. This winter, too, she had peculiar 
reasons for staying in town, over and above all other mo- 
tives. She stayed in the snug little house in Half-Moon 
Street, therefore, and was at home ”pn Saturday even- 
ings just as if the season had been at its flood. The society 
with which she filled her miniature drawing-room was liter- 
ary, musical, artistic, dramatic — just the most delightful 
society imaginable, with the faintest soup^on of Bohemian- 
ism. She had chosen Saturday evening because journalists 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. ' 125 

who were free on no other night could drop in, and Mrs» 
Walsingham adored journalists. 

On this particular Saturday, three days after the scene 
in the summer-house, James Wyatt had made his appear- 
ance in the Half-Moon Street drawing-room just when 
most people were going away. He contrived to outstay 
theni all, though Mrs. Walsingham^s manner was not so 
cordial as to invite him to linger. She yawned audibly 
behind the edge of her large black fan when Mr. Wyatt 
took up his stand in front of the chimney-piece with the 
air of a man who is going to be a fixture for the next hour. 

“ Have you heard the news?^^ he asked, after a brief 
silence. 

‘‘From Davenant? Yes, I am kept pretty well au 
conrant.^^ 

“ A sharp little thing, that Duport. 

‘‘Very.^^ 

Silence again, during which Mrs. Walsingham surveys 
her violet velvet gown and admires the Venice point flounce 
which relieves its somber hue. 

Clara,” said James Wyatt, with a suddenness that 
startled the lady into looking up at him, “ I think I have 
performed my part of our bargain. When are you going 
to perform yours?” 

“ I don’t quite understand 3 ^ou.” 

“ Oh, yes, you do, Mrs. Walsingham. There are some 
things that will hardly bear to be discussed even between 
conspirators. I am not going to enter into details. When 
I found you in this room three years ago on Gilbert Sin- 
clair’s wedding-day, you had but one thought, one desire — 
your whole being was athirst for revenge. You are re- 
venged, and I have been the chief instrument in the realiza- 
tion of your wish. A wicked wish on your part; doubly 
wicked on mine, with less passion and weaker hatred, to be 
your aider and abettor. 8oit. I am content to bear the 
burden of my guilt, but not to be cheated of my reward. 
What I have done I have done for your sake — to win your 
love.” 

To buy me,” she said, ‘‘ as slaves are bought, with a 
price. That’s what you mean. You^ don’t suppose I 
shall love you for workii^g Gilbert Sinclair’s ruin?” 

“ You wanted to see him ruined.” 

‘‘ Yes, when I was mad with rage and grief. Hid you 


126 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


think you were talking to a sane woman that evening after 
Gilbert's marriage? You were talking to a woman whose 
brain had been on fire with despair and jealousy through 
the long hours of that agonizing day. What should I long 
for hut revenge then 9” 

“ Well, you. have had your hearths desire, and it seems 
to me that your conduct since that day has been pretty con- 
sistent with the sentiments you gave expression to then. 
Do you mean to tell me that you are going to throw me 
over now — that you are going to repudiate the proimse you 
made me — a promise on which I have counted with un- 
flinching faith in your honor?” 

“ In my honor!” cried Mrs. Walsingham, with a bitter 
.sneer, all the more bitter because it was pointed against 
herself. “ In the honor of a woman who could act as I 
have acted!” 

“ I forgive anything to passion; but to betray me would 
be deliberate cruelty.” 

“ Would it?” she asked, smiling at him. ‘‘ I think it 
would be more cruel to keep my word and make your life 
miserable. ” 

“You shall make me as miserable as you please, if you 
will only have me,” urged Wyatt. “ Come, Clara, I have 
been your slave for the last three years. I have sacrificed 
interests which most men hold sacred to serve or to please 
you. It would be unparalleled baseness to break your 
promise.” 

“ My promise was wrung from me in a moment of blind 
passion,” cried Mrs. Walsingham. “If the Prince of 
Darkness had asked me to seal a covenant with him that 
day, I should have consented as freely as I consented to 
your bargain. 

“ The comparison is flattering to me,” replied Mr. 
Wyatt, looking at her darkly from under bent brows. 
There is a stage at which outraged love turns to keenest 
hate, and James Wyatt^s feelings were fast approaching 
that stage. “ In one word, do you mean to keep faith 
with me? Yes, or no?” 

“No,” answered Mrs. Walsingham, with a steady look 
that meant defiance. “No, and again no. Tell the 
world what you have done, and how I have cheated you. 
Publish your wrongs if you dare. I have never loved but 
one man in my life, and his name is Gilbert Sinclair. And 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 137 

now good-night, Mr. Wyatt, or, rather, good-morning, for 
it is Sunday, and I don^t want to be late for church. 


CHAP.TEE XX. 

DR. HOLLENDORF. 

The Xew-year began with much ringing of parish bells,, 
some genuine joviality in cottages and servants’ halls, and 
various conventional rejoicings in polite society, but silence 
and solitude still reigned at Davenant. The chief rooms 
— saloon and dining-room, library and music-room — were 
abandoned altogether by the gloomy master of the house. 
They might as well have put on their holland pinafores and 
shut their shutters, as in the absence of the family, for no- 
body used them. Gilbert Sinclair lived in his snuggery at 
the end of the long gallery, eat and drank there, read his 
newspapers and wrote his letters, smoked and dozed in tho 
dull winter evenings. He rode a good deal in all kinds of 
weather, going far afield, no one knew where, and coming 
home at dusk, splashed to the neck, and with his horse in a 
condition peculiarly aggravating to grooms and stable-boys. 

Them there ’osses wilPave mud fever before long,’ ^ 
said the hirelings, dejectedly. ‘‘ There’s that blessed 
chestnut he set such store by a month ago with ’ardly a leg 
to stand on for wind-galls, and the roan filly’s over at 
knees a’ready. ” 

“ He ” meant Mr. Sinclair, who was riding his finest 
horses with a prodigal recklessness. 

Constance Sinclair lived to see the New-year, though she 
did not know why the church-bells rang out on the quiet 
midnight. She started up from her pillow with a fright- 
ened look when she heard that joy peal, crying that those 
were her wedding-bells, and that she must get ready for 
church. 

‘‘ To please you, papa,” she said. For your sake, 
papa. Pity my broken heart.” 

There had been days and nights, at the end of the old 
year, when Hr. Webb trembled for the sweet young life 
which he had watched almost from its beginning. A great 
physician had come down from London every day, and had 
gone away with a fee proportionate to his reputation, after 
diagnosing the disease in a most wonderful manner; but it 


128 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


was the little country apothecary who saved Constance 
Sinclair’s life. His watchfulness, his devotion, had kept 
the common enemy at bay. The life-current, which had 
ebbed very low, flowed gradually back, and after lying for 
ten days in an utterly prostrate and apathetic state, the 
patient was now strong enough to rise and be dressed, and 
lie on the sofa in her pretty morning-room, while Melanie, 
or honest Martha Briggs, who had come back to nurse her 
old mistress, read to her, to divert her mind, the doctor 
said; but, alas! as yet the mind seemed incapable of being 
awakened to interest in the things of this mortal life. 
When Constance spoke it was of the past — of her child- 
hood, or girlhood, of people and scenes familiar to her in 
that happy time. Of her husband she never spoke, and 
his rare visits to her room had a disturbing influence. So 
much so that I)r. Webb suggested that for the present Mr. 
Sinclair should refrain from seeing his wife. 

“ 1 can feel for you, my dear sir,” he said, sympathet- 
ically. ‘‘ I quite understand your anxiety, but you may 
trust me and the nurses. You will have all intelligence of 
progress. The mind at present is somewhat astray.” 

“ Do you think it will be always , so?” asked Sinclair. 
“Will she never recover her senses?” 

“ My dear sir, there is everything to hope. She is so 
young, and the disease is altogether so mysterious, whether 
the effect of the blow — that unlucky fall — or whether sim- 
ply a development of the brooding melancholy which we 
had to fight against before the accident, it is impossible to 
say. We are quite in the dark. Perfect seclusion and 
tranquillity may do much.” 

Lord Clanyarde came to see his daughter nearly every 
day. He had come back to Marchbrook from far more 
agreeable scenes on purpose to be near her. But his pres- 
ence seemed to give Constance no pleasure. There were 
days on which she looked at him with a wandering gaze 
that went to his heart, or a blank and stony look that ap- 
palled him by its awful likeness to death. There were 
other days when she knew him. On those days her talk 
was all of the past, and it was clear that memory had 
taken the place of intelligence. 

Lord Clanyarde felt all the pangs of remorse as he con- 
templated this spectacle of a broken heart, a mind wrecked 
by sorrow. 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


129 


Yet I can hardly blame myself for her sad slate, poor 
child/’ he argued. “ She was happy enough, bright 
enough, before she lost her baby.” 

The Nevv-year was a week- old, and since that first rally 
there had been no change for the better in Constance Sin- 
clair Vcondition; and now there came a decided change for 
the worse. Strength dwindled, a dull apathy took posses- 
sion of the patient, and even memory seemed a blank. 

i)r. Webb was in despair, and fairly owned his helpless- 
ness. The London physician came and went, and took his 
fee, and went on diagnosing with profoundest science, and 
tried the last resources of the pharmacopoeia, with an evi- 
dent conviction that he could minister to a mind diseased; 
but nothing came of his science, save that the patient grew 
daily weaker, as if fate and physic were too much for one 
feeble sufferer to cope withal. 

Gilbert Sinclair was told that unless a change came very 
speedily his wdfe must die. 

“If we could rouse her from this apthetic state,” said 
the physician; “ any shock — any surprise — especially of a 
pleasurable kind — that would act on the torpid brain might 
do wonders even yet; but all our attempts to intei*est her 
have so far been useless. ” 

Lord Clanyarde was present when this opinion was pro- 
nounced. He went home full of thought, more deeply con- 
cerned for his daughter than he had ever been yet for any 
mortal except himself. 

“ Poor little Connie!” he thought, remembering her in 
her white frock and blue sash; “ she was always my favor- 
ite — the prettiest, the gentlest, the most high-bred of all 
my girls, but I didn’t know she had such a hold upon my 
heart.” 

At Marchbrook Lord Clanyarde found an unexpected 
visitor waiting for him — a visitor whom he received with a 
very cordial greeting. 

Soon after dusk on the following evening Lord Clan- 
yarde returned to Davenant, but not alone. He took with 
him an elderly gentleman, with white hair, worn rather 
long, and a white beard — a person of almost patriarchal 
appearance, but somewhat disfigured by a pair of smoke- 
colored spectacles of the kind that are vulgarly known as 
“gig- lamps.” 

5 


130 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


The stranger^s clothes were of the shabbiest, yet even in 
their decay looked the garments of a gentleman. He wore 
ancient shepherd ^s plaid trousers, and a bottle-green over- 
coat of exploded cut. 

Gilbert Sinclair was in the hall when Lord Clanyarde 
and his companion arrived. Mr. Wyatt had just come down 
from London, and the two men were smoking their cigars 
by the great hall fire, the noble old, cavernous hearth 
which had succeeded the more mediaeval fashion of a fire 
in the center of the hall. 

“ My dear Sinclair,^' began Lord Clanyarde, with a 
somewhat hurried and nervous air, which might be for- 
given in a man whose favorite daughter languished be- 
tween life and death, ‘‘ I have ventured to bring an old 
friend of mine. Doctor Hollendorf, a gentleman who has a 
great practice in Berlin, and who has had vast experience 
in the treatment of mental disorders. Doctor Hollendorf, 
Mr. Sinclair. I beg your pardon, Wyatt, how do you do?^^ 
interjected Lord Clanyarde, offering the solicitor a couple 
of fingers. Now, Gilbert, I should much like Doctor 
Hollendorf to see my poor Constance. It may do no good, 
but it can do no harm; and if you have no objection, with 
Doctor Webb^s concurrence, of course, I should like — 

‘‘ Webb is in the house, answered Gilbert. “ You caa 
ask him for yourself. I have no objection. 

This was said with a weary air,’ as if the speaker had 
ceased to take any interest in life. Gilbert hardly looked 
at the German, or Anglo-German, doctor, but James Wyatt, 
who was of a more observant turn, scrutinized him attent- 
ively. 

‘^Here is Webb,^^ said Gilbert, as the little doctor came? 
tripping down the great staircase, with the lightsome activ- 
ity of his profession, rubbing his hands as he came. 

Lord Clanyarde presented Dr. Hollendorf to the rural 
practitioner, and stated his wish. Dr. Webb had no objec- 
tion to offer. Any wish of a father’s must be sacred. 

“ You will come up and see her at once.^” he said, in- 
terrogatively. 

“ At once,” answered the stranger, with a slightly gut- 
tural accent. 

The three men went up the staircase, Gilbert remaining 
behind. 

‘‘ Aren’t you going?” asked Wyatt. 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 131 

‘‘ No; my presence generally disturbs her. Why should 
Igor I not wanted. 

should go if I were you. How do you know what 
this man is? An impudent quack, in all probability. You 
ought to be present.-’^ 

‘ Do you think so?’^ 

‘‘Decidedly."" 

“Then ril go."" 

“Watch your wife when that man is talking to her,"" 
said Wyatt, in a lower tone, as Gilbert moved away. 

“ What do you mean?"" asked the other, turning sharply 
around. 

“ What I say. Watch your wife!"" 

Mrs. Sinclair"s morning-room was a spacious, old-fash- 
ioned apartment, with three long windows, one opening 
into a wide balcony, from which an iron stair led down to 
a garden, small and secluded, laid out in the Dutch style — 
a garden which had been always sacred to the mistress of 
Davenant. There were heavy oak shutters, and a compli- 
cated arrangement of bolts and bars to the three windows, 
but as these shutters were rarely closed, the stair and the 
baalcony might be considered as a convenience specially 

E rovided for the benefit of burglars. No burglars had, 
owever, yet been heard of at Davenant. 

There was a piano in the room. There were well-filled 
book-cases, pictures, quaint old china — all things that make 
life pleasant to the mind that is at ease, and which may be 
supposed to offer some consolation to the care-burdened 
spirit. The fire blazed merrily, and on a sofa in front of 
it Constance reclined, dressed in a loose white cashmere 
gown, hardly whiter than the wasted oval face, from which 
the dark-brown hair was drawn back by a band of blue rib- 
bon, just as it had been ten years ago, when Constance was 
“ little Connie,"" flitting about the lawn at Marchbrook 
like a white and blue butterfly. 

“ My pet,"" said Lord Clanyarde, in a pleading tone, “ I 
have brought a new doctor to see you, a gentleman who 
may be able to understand your case even better than our 
friend Webb."" 

“No one ever knew her constitution as well as I do,"" 
commented Dr. Webb, sotto voce. 

Constance raised her heavy eyelids and looked at her fa- 
ther with a languid wonder, as if the figures standing by 


132 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


her couch were far away, and she saw them faintly in the 
distance, without knowing what they were. 

The new doctor did not go through the usual formula of 
pulse and tongue, nor did he ask the old-established ques- 
tions, but he seated himself quietly by Constance Sinclair's 
sofa and began to talk to her in a low voice, while Dr. 
Webb and Lord Clanyarde withdrew to the other end of the 
room, where Gilbert was standing by a table, absently turn- 
ing over the leaves of a book. 

“You have had a great sorrow, my dear lady,^^ said the 
German doctor, in that low and confidential tone which 
sometimes finds its way to the clouded brain when louder 
and clearer accents convey no meaning. “ You have had 
a great sorrow, and have given way to grief as if there were 
no comfort either in earth or in heaven. 

Constance listened with lowered eyelids, but a look of 
attention came into her face presently, which the doctor 
perceived. 

“ Dear lady, there is always comfort in heaven; there is 
sometimes consolation on earth. Why can you not hope 
for some sudden, unlooked-for happiness, some great joy 
such as God has sometimes given to mourners like you? 
Your child was drowned, you think. What if you were 
deceived when you believed in her death? What if she was 
saved from the river? I do not say that it is so, but you 
can not be certain. Who can know for a certainty that the 
little one was really drowned?'^ 

The eyes were wide open now, staring at him wildly. 

“ What’s the old fellow about so long?” asked Gilbert, 
impatiently. 

“ He is talking to her about her child,” replied Lord 
Clanyarde. “ He wants to make her cry if he can. He’s 
a great psychologist. ” 

“ Does that mean a great humbug?” asked Gilbert. “ It 
sounds like it. ” 

“ Hope and comfort are coming to you, dear Mrs. Sin- 
clair,” said the German doctor; “ be sure of that.” 

Again Constance looked at him curiously; but at sight of 
the smoke-colored spectacles and the sallow old face, half- 
covered with white hair, turned away her eyes with a sigh. 
If she could have seen eyes that looked honestly into hers, 
it might have given force to that promise of comfort, but 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 133 

this blind oracle was too mysterious. She gave a long 
sigh, and kept silence. 

The doctor looked at the open piano on the other side of 
the fire-place, and remained in thoughtful silence for a few 
moments. 

“ Does your mistress sing sometimes?^ ^ he asked Martha 
Briggs, who sat on guard by the sofa. 

** No, sir, not since she’s been so ill, but she plays some- 
times, by snatches, beautiful. It would go to your heart 
to hear her. ” 

‘‘ Will you sing to me,” asked the doctor, if you are 
strong enough to go to the piano? Pray, try to sing.” 

Constance looked at him with the same puzzled gaze, 
and then tried to rise. Martha supported her on one side, 
the doctor on the other, as she feebly tottered to the piano. 

‘‘I’ll sing if you like,” she said, in a careless tone that 
told how far the mind was from consciousness of the pres- 
ent. “ Papa likes to hear me sing.” 

She seated herself at the piano, and her fingers wandered 
slowly over the keys, and wandered on in a dreamy prelude 
that had little meaning.- The German doctor listened 
patiently for a few minutes to this tangle of arpeggios, and 
then, bending over the piano, played the few notes of a 
familiar symphony. 

Constance gave a faint cry of surprise, and struck a 
chord, the chord that closed the symphony, and began 
“ Strangers Yet,” in a pathetic voice that had a strange 
hysterical power in curious contrast with the feebleness of 
the singer. 

She sung on till she came to the words “ child and par- 
ent.” These touched a sensitive chord, and she rose sud- 
denly from the piano and burst into tears. 

“ That may do good,” said Dr. Webb, approvingly. 

“ My friend is no fool,” replied Lord Clanyarde. 

“ Take your mistress to he^ room,” said Gilbert, to 
Martha, with an angry look. “ This is only playing upon 
her nerves. I wonder you can allow such folly. Lord Clan- 
yarde!” 

“ Your own doctors have agreed that some shock was 
necessary, something to awaken her from apathy. Poor 
pet! those tears are a relief,” answered the father. 

He went to his daughter and assisted in arranging the 


134 


TVEAYERS AND Y^EFT. 


pillows as she lay down on the sofa. Martha calmly ig- 
nored her master’s order. 

The German doctor bent over Mrs. Sinclair for a mo- 
ment, and whispered the one word “ Hope,” and then re- 
tired with the three other gentlemen. 

“Would you like to prescribe anything?’’ asked Dr. 
Webb, taking the stranger into a little room off the hall. 

“ No; it is a case in which drugs are useless. Hope is 
the only remedy for Mrs. Sinclair’s disease. She must be 
beguiled with hope, even if it be delusive.” 

“ What?” cried Dr. Webb, “ would you trifle with her 
feelings, play upon the weakness of her mind, and let her 
awaken by and by to find herself deluded?” 

“ I would do anything to snatch her from the jaws of 
death,” answered the German doctor, unhesitatingly. “ If 
hope is not held out to her, she will die. You see her fad- 
ing day by day. Do you think there is any charm in your 
medicines that will bring her back to life?” 

“ I fear not, sir,” answered Dr. Webb, despondently. 

“ Then you or those who love her must find some more 
potent influence. She is heart-broken for the loss of her 
child. She must be taught to think that her child is still 
living.” 

“ But when her mind grows stronger it would be a still 
heavier blow to discover that she had been deceived. ” 

“ She would be better able to bear the blow when health 
and strength had returned, and she might have formed an 
attachment in the meantime which would console her in 
the hour of disillusion. ” 

“ I don’t understand,” faltered Dr. Webb. 

“I’ll make myself clearer. A child must be brought to 
Mrs. Sinclair, a little girl of about the age of her own baby, 
and she must be persuaded to believe, now while her brain 
is clouded, that her own child is given back to her. ” 

“ A cruel deception,” cried Dr. Webb. 

“ No; only a desperate ^remedy. Which are her friends 
to do — deceive her, or let her die? In her present condition 
of mind she will ask no questions, she will not speculate 
upon probabilities. She will take the child to her breast 
as a gift from Heaven. A mind distraught is always ready 
to believe in the marvelous, to imagine itself the object of 
supernatural intervention.” 

Dr. Webb looked thoughtfully and half convinced. This 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


135 


German physician, who spoke good English, seemed to 
have studied his subject deeply. Dr. Webb was no 
psychologist, but he had seen in the mentally afflicted 
that very love of the marvelous which Dr. Hollendorf 
spoke about. And what hope had he of saving his patient? 
Alas! none. It would be a cruel thing to put a spurious 
child in her arms, to trifle with a mother’s sacred feelings; 
but if life and reason could be saved by this means and no 
other, surely the fraud would be a pious one. 

Mr. Sinclair would never consent,” said Dr. Webb. 

‘‘ Mr. Sinclair must be made to consent. I have already 
suggested this step to Lord Clanyarde, and he approves the 
idea. He must bring his influence to bear upon Mr. Sin- 
clair, who appears an indifferent husband, and not warm- 
ly interested in his wife’s fate.” 

‘‘There you wrong him,” cried the faithful Webb. 
“ His manner does not do him justice. The poor man has 
been in a most miserable condition ever since Mrs. Sin- 
clair’s illness assumed an alarming aspect. Will you make 
this suggestion to him — propose our introducing a strange 
child?” 

“ I would rather the proposal should come from Lord 
Clanyarde, ” answered the strange doctor, looking at his 
watch. “ I must get back to London by the next train. I 
shall tell Lord Clanyarde my opinion as he drives me to the 
station. I think I have made my ideas sufficiently clear to 
you. Dr. Webb.” 

“ Quite so, quite so,” cried the little man, whose mother 
was an A.berdeen woman. “ It is a most extraordinary 
thing. Dr. Hollendorf, that although I have never had the 
honor of meeting you before, your voice is very familiar to 
me. ” 

“ My dear sir, do you suppose that Nature can give a 
distinctive voice, to every unit in an overcrowded world? 
You might hear my voice in the Fejees to-morrow. There 
would be nothing extraordinary in that.” 

“ Of course, of course. An accidental resemblance,” as- 
sented Dr. Webb. 

The German would take no fee; he had come as Lord 
Clanyarde’s friend, and he drove away in Lord Clanyarde ’s 
brougham without any further loss of time. 

Gilbert Sinclair and his friend devoted the rest of the 


130 


WEAVERS AXD WEFT. 


evening to billiards, with frequent refreshment on Gilbert's 
part in the way of brandy and soda. 

You talked the other day about finding a purchaser for 
this confounded old barrack," said Mr. Sinclair. “ I hate 
the place more every day, and it is costing me no end of 
money for repairs — never saw such a rickety old hole, 
always some wall tumbling down or drain getting choked 
up — to say nothing of keeping up a large stable here as 
well as at Newmarket." 

“ Why not give up Newmarket?" suggested Mr. Wyatt, 
with his common sense air. 

Fm not such a fool. Newmarket gives me some pleas- 
ure, and this place gives me none." 

“ You must keep up a home for Mrs. Sinclair, and a 
London house would hardly be suitable in her present- 
state." 

I can take her to Hastings or Ventnor, or to my box 
at Newmarket, if it comes to that." 

Isn't it better for her to be near her father?" 

What does she want with her father, an old twaddler 
like Olanyarde, without a thought beyond the gossip of his 
club? Don't humbug, Wyatt. You told me you could 
put your finger on a purchaser. Was that bosh, or did 
you mean it?" 

‘‘It was not bosh," answered Wyatt; “ but I wanted to 
be quite sure you were in earnest before I pushed my pro- 
posal any further. You might consider it an impertinence 
even for me to think of such a thing." 

“ What are you driving at?" 

“Will you sell Davenant to me?" 

Gilbert dropped his billiard cue and stood staring at his 
friend in blank amazement. Here was a new state of 
things, indeed. The professional man treading on the 
heels of the millionaire. 

“ You!" he exclaimed, with contemptuous surprise. “ I 
did not think fifteen per cent, and renewals could be made 
so profitable." 

“I'm too thin-skinned to resent the insinuation,'*' said 
James Wyatt, cushioning his opponent's ball. “I can 
afi’ord to buy Davenant for the price you gave for it. I've 
got just enough money disengaged. I sold out of Palermos 
the other day when they were up, to provide the purchase 
money. I brought down a deed of transfer, and if you are 


WEAYEHS AND WEFT. 137 

in earnest, we can settle the business to-morrow morn- 
ing.^’ 

‘ You^re buying the place as a speculation,^^ said Gil- 
bert, suspiciously. 

“ Not exactly. But what would it matter to you if I 
were? You want to get rid of the place. I am ready to 
take it off your hands. 

“You have heard of a bid from somebody else/^ 

“ No, 1 have not. 

“ Well, you Ye a curjous fellow. Going to get married^ 
I suppose, and turn country squire." 

“ Never mind my plans. Do you mean to sell?^^ 

“ Yes." 

“ Then I^m ready to buy." 

The deed was executed next morning. Gilbert stipulated 
that he was not to surrender the house till the midsummer 
quarter, and that James Wyatt was to take the furniture 
at a valuation. 

Mr. Sinclair was much pleased with the idea of getting 
back five-and- thirty thousand pounds of ready money for 
a place the purchase of which had been a whim, and of 
the occupation whereof he was heartily tired. Those miners 
in the north were still holding out, and money had not been 
flowing Into his coffers nearly so fast as it had been flowing 
out during the last half year. He had made unlucky bar- 
gains in horseflesh — squandered his money on second-rate 
stock, and on running small races that were not worth his 
people’s traveling expenses. In a word, he had done all 
those foolish things which an idle man who thinks himself 
extremely clever, and yet lends an ear to every new adviser 
is apt to do. 

“ Five-and- thirty thou’ will put me into smooth water,” 
he said, as he signed the contract with a flourish. 

The one suspicion as to Mr. Wyatt’s attentions, which 
would have prevented Gilbert Sinclair agreeing to the bar- 
gain, had never presented itself to his mind. 

James Wyatt went back to London that afternoon, 
promising to meet his client next day at the Argyle Street 
Branch of the Union Bank, and hand over the purchase- 
money. At eight o’clock that evening he presented him- 
self at Sir Cyprian Daven ant’s chambers. He found his 
friend sitting alone among his books, smoking an Indian 
hookah. 


138 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


Wyatt, old fellow, this is a surprise,^ ^ said Cyprian, as 
they shook hands. “ Have you dined?’ ^ 

“ Thanks, yes; I took a chop at the Garrick. I’ve just 
come from Havenant.” 

“Indeed! How is Mrs. Sinclair?” 

“ Pretty much the same, poor soul. How long is it 
since you heard of her?” 

“ I saw Lord Clanyarde at his club about a week ago. ” 

“ Well, there’s been no change lately. Something wrong 
with the mind, you see, and a gradual ebbing away of 
strength. She’s not long for this world, I’m afraid; but 
she was too good for it. Angels are better off in heaven 
than they are with us. We don’t appreciate them. ” 

“No more than swine appreciate pearls,” said Sir 
Cyprian. 

“ What would y6u give to get Davenant back?” asked 
Mr. Wyatt, without preface. 

“ What would I give? Anything — half my fortune.” 
r “ What is your fortune worth? ’ 

“ About a hundred and fifty thousand.” 

“ Well, then, I sha’n’t want so much as half of it, 
though your offer is tempting. Davenant is mine. ” 

“ Yours!” 

“ Yes, at the price you got for it, with another five thou- 
sand as a sporting bid for the furniture and improvements. 
Give me five-and-twenty per cent, on my purchase and 
Davenant is yours. ” 

“ Willingly. But how about Mrs. Sinclair? Will it not 
grieve her to lose the place?” 

“Whether or no, the place is sold. I tell you. Sir 
Cyprian, I stand before you the owner of Davenant and all 
its appurtenances. I did not buy it for myself, but on the 
speculation that, as I bought it cheap, you would be glad 
to give me a profit on my purchase. I knew Sinclair well 
enough to be very sure that he would let the roof rot over 
his head before he would consent to sell the place to you. ” 
“You have done a friendly thing, Wyatt, and I thank 
YOU. I should hesitate, perhaps, in agreeing to such a 
bargain were any other man than Mr. Sinclair in question, 
but I do not feel myself bound to stand upon jDunctilio 
with him. ” 

^ “Punctilio, man! There’s no punctilio to stand upon. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 139 

Sinclair sold the estate to me unconditionally, and I have 
an indisputable right to sell it to you/’’ 


CHAPTER XXL 

A RAPID THAW. 

Sir Cyprian Davenant had ridden to Totteridge 
several times after his discovery of Mrs. Walsingham^s con- 
nection with the village as tenant of that small and unpre- 
tending house with the green shutters, glass door, and 
square plot of garden. It was his habit to put up his horse 
at the inn, and go for a rustic stroll while the animal rested 
after his midday feed, and in these rambles he had made 
the acquaintance of the nurse and baby at the green-shut- 
tered house. 

The nurse was a German girl, fat-faced, good-natured, 
and unintelligent. Sir Cyprian won her heart at the out- 
set by addressing her in her native language, which she had 
not heard since she came to England, and in the confidence 
inspired by his kind manners and excellent German she 
freely imparted her affairs to the stranger. Mrs. Walsing- 
ham had hired her in Brussels, and brought her home as 
nurse to the little girl, whose previous nurse had been dis- 
missed for bad conduct in that city. 

“ Mrs. Walsingham's little girlr'^ inquired Sir Cyprian. 

Xo. The darling was an orphan, the daughter of a poor 
cousin of Mrs. Walsingham who had died in Vienna, and 
the kind lady had brought the little one home, and was go- 
ing to bring her up as her own child. 

Sir (Cyprian heard and was doubtful. He had his own 
theory about, this baby, but a theory which he would not 
for worlds have imparted to any one. He got on quite 
familiar terms with the little one by and by. She was a 
chubby rosy infant of about fifteen months old, with brown 
eyes and fair complexion, and hair that made golden-brown 
rings upon her ivory forehead. She made frantic efforts to 
talk, but at present only succeeded in being loquacious in a 
language of her own. 

She was quite ready to attach herself to the wandering 
stranger, fascinated by his watch-chain and seals. 

What is her namer^^ asked Sir Cyprian, 

‘‘ Clara, but we always call her Baby, 


140 


WEAYEKS AND WEFT. 


Clara? That^s only her Christian name. She has a 
surname, I suppose?^ ^ 

The nurse-maid supposed as much also, but had never 
heard any surname, nor the profession of the little dear’s 
father, nor any details of the death of father and mother. 
Mrs. Walsingham was a lady who talked very little, but 
she seemed extremely fond of Baby. She came to see her 
twice a week, and sometimes -sta 5 "ed all day, playing with 
her, and superintending her dinner, and carrying her about 
the garden. 

On the morning after that interview with James Wyatt 
Sir Cyprian rode to Totteridge and put up his horse, as 
usual, at the inn. The nurse had told him that Mrs. 
Walsingham was to be at the cottage to-day, and he had 
special reasons for wishing to see that lady. He might have 
called upon her in Half-Moon Street, of course, but he pre- 
ferred to see her at Baby’s establishment, if possible. 

It was noon when he walked up and down the pathway 
before the cottage, waiting for Mrs. Walsingham ’s arrival, 
a bright winter day, with a blue sky and a west wind. He 
had exchanged greetings with Baby already, that young 
lady saluting him from the nursery window with vivacious 
flourishes of her pink arms. 

The church clock had not long struck twelve when Mrs. 
Walsingham ’s neat brougham drove up. She opened the 
door and let herself out, and had scarcely stepped on to the 
pathway when she recognized Sir Cyprian. 

She turned very pale, and made a little movement, as if 
she would have gone back to her carriage, but Sir Cyprian 
advanced, hat in hand, to greet her. 

“You have not forgotten me, I hope, Mrs. Walsing- 
ham?” 

“ Sir Cyprian DaVenant, I think?” 

“Yes; 1 have had the pleasure of meeting you more 
than three years ago at the Star and Garter.” 

“ I remember perfectly. You have been in Africa since 
then. I have read some notices of your adventures there. 
I am glad to see you so little the worse for them. And 
now I must bid you good-morning. I have to see some 
people here. You can wait at the inn. Holmes,” to the 
coachman. 

“ Will you give me half an hour — a quarter of an hour’s 
conversation, Mrs. Walsingham?” asked Sir Cyprian. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


141 


She looked afc him uneasily, evidently puzzled. 

Upon what subject:’^ 

Upon a matter of life and death. 

You alarm me. Have you come here on purpose to 
waylay me? I thought our meeting was accidental. 

“ Waylay is a disagreeable word; but I certainly came 
here this morning on purpose to see you. I am going to 
make an appeal to your heart, Mrs. Walsingham. I want 
you to do a noble action. 

“ I am afraid you have come to4he wrong quarter for 
that commodity,^ ^ she answered, with a bitter smile, but 
she seemed somewhat reassured by this mode of address. 

‘‘ Shall we walkr^' she asked, moving away from the gar« 
den gate. 

The wide high-road lay before them, destitute of any sign 
of human life, the leafless limes and chestnuts standing up 
against the winter sky, the far-off hills purple in the clear 
bright air. They would be as much alone here as within 
any four walls, and Mrs. Walsingham was evidently disin- 
clined to admit Sir Cyprian into Ivy Cottage, as the house 
with the green shutters was called. 

‘‘ Have you friends here? Ho you often come ?^’ asked 
Mrs. Walsingham, carelessly. 

“ I take my morning ride here occasionally, and the 
other day, while resting my horse, I made the acquaintance 
of your German nurse and her charge. Baby is a most 
fascinating little thing, and I take the warmest interest in 
her.^^ 


“ What a pity my small niece is not old enough to ap- 
preciate the honor sneered Mrs. Walsingham. 

Sir Cyprian ignored the sneer. 

“ My interest in that sweet little thing has given rise to 
a strange idea — a wild one, you will say, perhaps — when I 
have explained myself. But I must begin at the begin- 
ning. I told you that I was going to make an appeal fo 
your heart. I come here to ask you to lend your aid in 
saving the life and reason of one whom you may have 
deemed in some wise your rival. Mrs. Sinclair is dying. ” 

Mrs. Walsingham was silent. 

‘‘You have heard as much from some one else, per- 
haps?’’ 

“ I heard that she was seriously ill.” 

“And mentally afflicted?” 


142 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


“ Yes. You do not expect me to be greatly shocked or 
grieved, I hope. I never saw the lady, except in her box 
at the opera. 

“And being a stranger, you can not pity her. That is 
not following the example of the good Samaritan. 

“ If I found her on the road-side I should try to succor 
her, I dare say,” answered Mrs. Walsingham; “ but as her 
distresses do not come in my pathway, and as I have plenty 
of nearer demands upon my pity, I can hardly be expected 
to make myself miserable on Mrs. Sinclair's account. No 
doubt she has plenty of sympathy — a husband who adores 
her — and the chivalrous devotion of old admirers, like 
yourself.^’ 

“ Spare her your sneers, Mrs. Walsingham. At no mo- 
ment of her married life has she been a woman to be en- 
vied. In her present condition to refuse her pity would be 
to be less than human. Constance Sinclair is dying of a 
broken heart. 

“ Very sad,^^ sighed Mrs. Walsingham. 

“ That is what you would say if one of your friends re- 
lated the untimely death of a favorite lap-dog. Have you 
ever thought what that phrase means, Mrs. Walsingham'? 
People use it lightly enough. A broken heart, the slow 
agony of a grief that kills — a broken heart, not broken by 
some sudden blow that shatters joy and life together — hap- 
py those whom sorrow slays with such merciful violence — 
but the slow wearing away, the dull, hopeless days, the 
sleepless nights, the despair that eats into the soul, yet is 
so slow to kill — these are the agonies wliich we sum up 
lightly, in our conventional phraseology, when we talk 
about broken hearts. ” 

“Is it the loss of her baby which Mrs. Sinclair feels sov 
deeply?” asked Mrs. Walsingham, who had listened! 
thoughtfully to Sir Cyprian^s appeal. She no longer 
affected a callous indifference to her rivaPs grief. 

“ Yes. That is the grief which is killing her. She has 
never been really happy with her husband, though she had 
been a good and dutiful wife. The child brought her hap- 
piness. She gave it all her love. She may have erred, 
perhaps, in concentrating her affection upon this baby, but 
the baby represented her world of love. When that was 
taken from her — suddenly — without a moment^s warning, 
she gave herself up to despair. I have talked to a faithful 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


143 


servant who was with her in that bitter time, who knew her 
measureless love for the child. I have seen her in her 
grief, seen her the wreck of the joyous girl I knew three 
years ago.^^ 

Mrs. Walsingham was moved. No softening tear veiled 
the hard brightness of her dark eyes, but her lower lip 
worked nervously, and her increasing pallor told of a mind 
deeply troubled. 

“ If her husband had by any act of his brought her to 
this condition, I should call him something worse than a 
murderer,^ ^ said Sir Cyprian; “but badly as I think of 
Oilbert Sinclair, I can not blame him here. It is destiny 
that has been cruel — an inscrutable Providence which has 
chosen to inflict this hopeless misery on the gentlest and 
most innocent of victims. It is very hard to understand 
why this should be. 

“ Mrs. Sinclair is not the first, said Mrs. Walsingham, 
struggling against some strong feeling. “ Other women 
have lost children they loved — only children — the idols of 
their hearts.'^' 

“ Other women have had kinder husbands, perhaps, to 
sympathize with and comfort them. Other women have 
had sources of consolation which Mrs. Sinclair has not.-’"’ 

“ She has her piety, her church, her prayer-book. 1 
should have thought so pure and perfect a woman would 
find consolation from those. I do not profess to be relig- 
ious, or to have treasures laid up in heaven, and the loss of 
what I love most on earth might bring me to madness. 
But Mrs. Sinclair’s placid perfection should be above such 
human passions.” 

“She is human enough and weak enough to break her 
heart for the loss of her child,” answered Sir Cyprian, 
.growing angry. “ But you seem to be incapable of pity, 
and I fear I have been mistaken in appealing to you. Yet 
I thought that your love for that child yonder might in- 
spire some feeling of sympathy with an afflicted mother.” 

“ My affection for my poor little orphan cousin — a waif 
thrown on my hands by misfortune — is not a very absorb- 
ing sentiment,” answered Mrs. Walsingham, with languid 
scorn. 

“ So much the better,” cried Sir Cyprian, eagerly, “for 
in that case you will the easier fall in with my plan for sav- 
ing Mrs. Sinclair’s life and reason. ” 


144 


WEIYERS AKD WEFT. 


You have a plan for saving her?’^ 

“ Yes, a plan recommended by her physicians, and to 
which her husband and father have given their consent. 
In a crisis in which nothing but hope could save her she has 
been told to hope. It has been even hinted to her that 
her child is still living.^^ 

Mrs. Walsingham started and looked at him wonder- 
ingly. 

“ A cruel deception you think, but the case was desper- 
ate, remember. This false hope has already done some- 
thing. ' I have heard this morning that there has been a 
faint rally — a flicker of returning intelligence. She re- 
members that she has been told to hope — remembers and 
looks forward to the realization of the promise that has 
been made. If we fail her now, despair will again take 
possession of her — more bitter because of this ray of light. 
The plan formed by those who love her best is to give her 
a child to love — a child whom she will believe at first to be 
her own, saved from the German river, but about which, 
in time to come, when reason and strength have returned, 
she may be told the truth. She will have given the little 
one her love by that time, and the adopted child will fill 
the place of the lost one. ” 

“ A most romantic scheme, assuredly. Sir Cyprian. And 
pray what part do you expect me to play in this domestic 
drama? Why choose me for your confidante?^^ 

“ The little girl you have adopted is about the age of 
Mrs. Sinclair’s baby. You admit that she is not very dear 
to you — a charge which you have taken upon yourself out 
of charity. Let Gilbert Sinclair adopt that child. He shall 
provide handsomely for her future, or, if you prefer trust- 
ing me, I will settle a sum of money which you shall ap- 
prove, in trust for your little cousin, you yourself choosing 
the trustees. Give me that dear child, Mrs. Walsingham, 
and you will be the means of saving Constance Sinclair’s 
life.” 

“ That child?” cried Mrs. Walsingham, looking at him 
with wide-open eyes. “ 1 give you that child to be Con- 
stance Sinclair’s solace and consolation — to win Gilbert’s 
wife back to life and happiness! /surrender that child! 
You must be mad to ask it.” 

“ Did you not tell me just now that the child was not 
especially dear to you?” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


145 


‘‘ She is dear to me/^ answered Mrs. Walsingham, vehe- 
mently. ‘‘ I have grown to love her. She*is all I have in 
the world to love. She reminds me of one who once loved 
me. Why do yon prate to me of Mrs. Sinclair's loneli- 
ness? She can not be lonelier than I am. What is there 
but emptiness in my heart? — yet I do not complain of a 
broken heart. I do not abandon myself to madness or im- 
becility. J bear my burden. Let her bear hers. Give you 
that child, indeed! That is asking too much.^^ 

“ Pardon me, Mrs. Walsingham; I thought I was talk- 
ing to a woman with a noble nature, whose higher instincts 
only needed to be appealed to.'' • 

“ It is so long since people have left off appealing to my 
higher instincts that they have somewhat lost their use. 
Do you think. Sir Cyprian Davenant, that I have cause to 
love or pity or sacrifice myself for Constance Sinclair? You 
should know better than that, unless you have lived all 
these years in this world without knowing what kind of 
clay your fellow men and women are made of. I have the 
strongest reason to detest Mrs. Sinclair, and I do detest 
her frankly. She has done me no wrong, you will say. 
She has done me the greatest wrong — robbed me of the 
man I love, of wealth, status, name, and place in the 
world. Do you think it matters to me that she was un- 
conscious of that wrong? She has done it, and I hate her 
for it, and shall .so hate her till my dying day." 

“ Your hatred will not reach her in the grave or follow 
her beyond it," answered Sir Cyprian. “ Your pity might 
save her life. " 

‘‘ Find some hospital brat to palm upon this distracted 
mother — some baby-farmer's protegee." 

I will find some respectably born child, be sure, Mrs. 
Walsingham. It was only a fancy, perhaps, which led me 
to propose taking your little kinswoman. I counted too 
much upon the generosity of a disappointed rival." 

And with this home-thrust. Sir Cyprian bowed and walked 
away, leaving the lady to her own reflections. 

A woman of this kind, a being swayed by passion, is 
often a mass of inconsistency and contradiction, now hot, 
now cold. At a late hour that evening Sir Cyprian received 
a letter, delivered by a man-servant. It was from Mrs. 
Walsingham. 


146 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


“ I am the most wretched of women — she wrote — 
utterly weary of life. Mrs. Sinclair may have the child. 
She would grow up a wretch if she grew up under my influ- 
ence, for every day makes me more miserable and more 
bitter. What shall I be as an old woman? Send some 
trustworthy person to fetch the little girl to-morrow. I 
give her up to you entirely, but upon condition that Mrs. 
Sinclair shall never know to whom she owes her adopted 
child. May the adoption prosper! But as I hear that 
Mr. Sinclair is in a fair way to ruin, I do not think you are 
giving my young kinswoman a very brilliant start in life. 
Be this as it may, I wash my hands of her. She has not 
brought me happiness; and perhaps if I were to let her 
wind herself round my heart, it might prove by and by 
that I had taught a serpent to coil there. I have not too 
good an opinion of her blood, 

“ Yours truly, 

“ Clara Walsij^gham. 

Half-Moon Street, Wednesday Night." 


CHAPTER XXII. 

KILL OR CURE. 

Mr. Sinclair was told by Lord Clanyarde of the plan 
which had been devised by the German physician for his 
daughter's cure, and, after a lengthy discussion, gave his 
sullen consent to the imposture. 

I donT like your German doctor — a thorough-paced 
charlatan, ITl warrant, he said; “ and I donT like palm- 
ing off an impostor upon my poor wife. But if you see any 
chance of good from this experiment, let it be tried. God 
knows I would give my heart’s blood to-morrow to bring 
Constance back to health and reason.” 

This was said with an unmistakable earnestness, and 
Lord Clanyarde believed it. He did not know what bitter 
reason Gilbert Sinclair had for desiring his wife’s recovery 
in the guilty consciousness that his brutality was the chief 
cause of her illness. 

“You are not going to bring some low-born brat into 
my house, I hope?” said Gilbert, with the pride of a man 
whose grandfather had worked in the mines, and whose 
father had died worth a million. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


147 


No; we shall find a gentleman ^s child — some orphan 
of about ChristabeFs age — to adopt. 

Gilbert shrugged his shoulders and said no more. 

That visit of the German physician had certainly wrought 
a change in Constance Sinclair's condition, and Dr. Webb 
declared that the change was for the better. She seemed 
to have awakened from that dull apathy, that utter inert- 
ness of mind and body, which both the London physician 
and the faithful country watch-dog had taken to be the 
precursor of death. She was restless — fiuttered by some ex- 
pectation which kept her senses curiously on the alert — 
wistful, watchful, listening — starting at every opening of 
a door, at every coming footfall. 

On the morning after Dr. Hollendorf ^s visit she asked for 
her Bible, and began to read David’s psalms of thanksgiving 
and rejoicing aloud, like one who gave thanks for a great 
joy. Later in the same day she went to the piano and 
sung — sung as she had never done since the beginning of 
her illness — sung like one who pours forth the gladness of 
her heart in melody. 

When Dr. Webb came that afternoon, he found his pa- 
tient sitting in an arm-chair by the window, propped up 
with pillows, much to the disgust of Melanie Duport, who 
was on duty at this time. 

• I know she isn’t strong enough to sit said Melanie, 
to the doctor, “but she would do it. She seems to be 
watching for something or some one.” 

The long window, opening upon the balcony, commanded 
a distant curve of the drive leading up to the house, and it 
was on this point that Constance Sinclair’s eyes were fixed. 

“ What are you waiting for, dear lady?” asked Dr. 
Webb, Sn his bland voice, that caressing tone in which 
medical men address feminine and infantine patients. In 
Dr. Webb’s case, the blandness meant more than it usually 
does, for he really loved his patient. 

“lam watching for my child. They will bring her to- 
day, perhaps. The strange doctor told me she was not 
drowned. It was true, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t deceive 
me. There was something in his voice that made me trust 
him— something that went to my heart. ^ My darling was 
saved, and she is coming back to me. You won’t deceive 
me, I know. She is coming — soon — soon — soon. Dear, 
dearest Doctor Webb, is it true?” 


148 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


“ Dear Mrs. Sinclair, you must not agitate yourself in 
this way,^"^ cried the doctor, flattered by this address. 

Yes, yes. Lord Clanyarde is going to bring you the little 
girl, and you^’ll be very fond of her I hope, and feel quite 
happy again. 

Happy cried Constance; ‘‘I shall be in heaven. 
Ask papa to bring her soon. 

She was restless throughout that day— sleepless all night. 
Sometimes her mind wandered, but at other times she 
spoke clearly and reasonably of God^s goodness to l^er in 
saving her child. On the following day the same idea was 
still paramount, but she was somewhat weakened by her 
excitement and restlessness, and was no longer able to sit 
up at her post of observation by the window. As the day 
wore on the old dull apathy seemed to be creeping over her 
again. She lay on her couch by the fire, silent, exhausted, 
noticing nothing that occurred around her; her pulse was 
alarmingly weak, her eyes vacant and heavy. 

“ If they doiiH bring the child soon, it will be too late 
for the experiment,’^ thought Dr. Webb; “ and if they do 
bring it, the excitement may be fatal. God guide us 
aright 1” 

It was dusk when Lord Clanyarde’s brougham drove up 
to the porch, and his lordship alighted, carrying a child 
muffled up in soft woolen shawls, and fast asleep. Gilbert 
Sinclair had not yet returned from his daily ride. The 
house was dark and empty. 

Lord Clanyarde went straight to his daughter’s room, 
where Dr. Webb was sitting, too anxious to leave his patient 
till the crisis which the intended experiment might produce 
had passed safely. Dr. Webb was not particularly hopeful 
about the strange doctor’s plan. ^ 

‘‘ Such good news, my darling,” said Lord Clanyarde, 
with elaborate cheerfulness; “ pray don’t agitate yourself, 
my dear Constance.” 

She started up from her sofa already, and tottered toward 
him with outstretched arms. 

“ I have brought you your baby. The little pet was not 
drowned, after all, and some good people in Germany took 
care of her. You will find her changed, of course — three 
or four months makes such a difference in a baby.” 

Constance neither heeded nor heard. She w^as sitting on 
the floor with the newly awakened child in her lap, hug- 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


140 


ging it to her breast, weeping sweetest tears over the soft, 
curly head, breathing forth her rapture in low, inarticulate 
exclamations. The fire-light shone on the picture of 
mother and child clinging together thus — the little one sub- 
mitting uncomplainingly to those vehement caresses. 

“ Thank God!'^ ejaculated Lord Clanyarde within him- 
self. “ She doesnT ask a question, poor child. She hasnT 
the faintest suspicion that we^re deceiving her.^^ 

He had chosen this hour for the introduction of the in- 
fant impostor so that Constance’s first scrutiny of the baby 
features should take place in a doubtful light. If first im- 
pressions were but favorable, doubts would hardly arise 
afterward in that enfeebled mind. Only when reason was 
fully restored would Constance begin to ask awkward ques- 
tions. 

This evening she did not even scrutinize the baby face; 
she only covered it with tears and kisses, and laid it against 
her bosom and was happy. She accepted this baby 
stranger at once as her lost Christabel. 

Dr. Webb was delighted. Those tears, those caresses, 
those gushes of happy love — what medicines could work 
such cure for a mind astray? 

“ Upon my word 1 believe you have done the right thing, 
and that your German doctor is not such a quack as I 
thought him,”, whispered the little man to Lord Clanyarde. 

He had still better reason to say this three or four hours 
later, when Constance was sleeping tranquilly — a sound and 
healthy slumber such as she had not known for many weary 
weeks — with the baby nestling at her side. 

Mr. Sinclair heard of the success that had attended the 
experiment, and seemed glad, or as glad as a man could be 
who had pressing cause for trouble. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

EXCELLENT BASILISK! — TURN UPON THE VULTURE.” 

If Fortune in a general way is a capricious and uncertain 
divinity, assuredly that particular goddess who presides over 
the affairs of racing men is most given to tricks and starts, 
to sudden frowns and unexpected smiles. 

Gilbert Sinclair’s new stables had, up to the beginning 
of this present year, brought him nothing but ill luck. So 


150 


WEAYEES AND WEFT. 


unvarying had been his reverses that his trainer and grooms 
gave full scope to their superstition, and opiued that the 
stables were unlucky, and that no good would ever come 
out of them. “ There had been a murder committed, 
may be, somewheres about, suggested one man, “ or the 
ground had been wrongfully come by; who could tellr^^ 

With the Craven meeting, however, the tide turned, and 
the Sinclair stables scored three palpable hits. But this 
was not all. Mr. Sinclair had bought a colt at York two 
years before, with all his faults and all his engagements — 
the engagements being particularly heavy, and the faults 
including one which the veterinary authorities believed 
might be fatal to the animahs career as a racer. The colt 
was of renewed lineage on both sides, and had a genealogy 
that went back to his great-grandsire and bristled with 
famous names— a colt in whose future some magnate of 
the turf would doubtess have speculated two or three thou- 
sand, but for that unlucky splinter. 

Gilbert Sinclair bought the colt for two hundred and 
fifty, under the advice of his trainer, a shrewd Yorkshire 
man, who loved a bargain better than the best purchase 
made in the regular way. 

“ He^s got the Touchstone and the Specter blood in 
him,^’ said Mr. Jackson, the trainer. “ He^s bound to 
come out a flyer if we can cure that olf fore-leg. 

But suppose we donT, Jackson^^^ said Gilbert, doubt- 
fully. “ Two hundred and fifty^s a lot of money for a 
lame horse, and his engagements will come to a good bit 
more. 

“ You may as well lose your money on him as on any 
thing else, mayVt you?^^ argued Mr. Jackson, who had 
no exalted opinion of his employer’s Judgment, and did not 
trouble himself to pretend a greater respect than he felt. 
The best of men is but small in the eyes of his trainer. 
“ You let meliave that there colt to nuss, and say no more 
about it. It’ll be a fad for me. I ought to have my fancy 
sometimes. You have yours, and a fat lot comes of it. ” 

Thus urged, Gilbert bouglit the colt, and John Jackson 
took him under his wing, and made him his pet and dar- 
ling, shutting him up in impenetrable loose boxes, and ex- 
ercising him secretly in the morning gray in sequestered 
paddocks far from the eyes of touts. Mr. Jackson had 
children— children who climbed his knees and called him 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


151 


father in childhood lisping syllables, but there was a pride 
in John Jackson ^s eye and a tenderness in his voice when 
he spoke of Goblin, the bay colt, which his children had 
never been able to evoke. 

I want to win the Derby before I die,^^ he said, with a 
touch of sentiment, like Moses sighing for the land of 
Canaan. “ It isn^t much to ask for, after having done my 
duty by a blessed lot of screws. 

Nobody — not even Mr. Sinclair himself — could ever pen- 
etrate the veil of mystery with which Jackson surrounded 
his favorite. Whether Goblin was doing well or ill was a 
secret which Jackson kept locked within his own breast. 
When Jackson looked gloomy, the underlings of the stable 
concluded that Goblin was “ off his feed,^^ or that Goblin- 
was ‘‘ up to nought.^' 

When it came to the contest of a trial, Mr. Jackson 
shrunk from the contest, and when compelled to rim his 
protegee against the best horse in the stable, secretly weighted 
Goblin in such a manner as to insure his being ignominiously 
beaten.^ 

Goblin kept none of his two-year-old engagements, 
though Mr. Jackson went so far as to admit by this time 
that the colt was no more lame than he was. But I ain^t 
going to let him fritter away his strength in two-year-old 
races,^^ said Mr. Jackson, decisively; I ain^t forgotten 
Bonnie Dundee. 

Gilbert Sinclair submitted unwillingly, being at this time 
very low down in his luck as a racing man, and anxious 
for any success which might in some wise redeem his po- 
sition. 

Now came spring — violets and primroses; woodlands 
white with chestnut bloom, and hawthorn; nightingales 
warbling their vesper love songs, and — much more import- 
ant to gentlemen of Mr. Sinclair’s class — the Two Thou- 
sand Guineas. And now Goblin came forward to perform 
his first important engagement as a three-year old, and 
Gilbert Sinclair was richly rewarded for his patience. 

Goblin — a horse entirely unknown to the racing public^ 
— came in an easy winner, and Gilbert, who had taken his 
trainer’s advice, and had backed his horse to the utmost 
capacity, won a small fortune, as well as feehng pretty sure 
about liis expectations for the Derby. 

It was the first great success Gilbert Sinclair had ever 


152 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


had upon the turf, and he left Newmarket that night 
almost light-headed with excitement.^ Things had been 
going much better with him since January. The men had 
gone back to their work in the grimy north. Indian 
steamers were using Mr. Sinclair’s coal as fast as he could 
produce it. The golden tide was flowing in his exchequer 
again, and his banker’s book no longer presented a dismal 
blank upon its left-hand pages. The success at Newmarket 
was the crowning mercy, fie felt himself a rich man once 
more, and laughed to scorn the notion of surrendering 
fiavenant at midsummer. Wyatt had bought and paid 
for the estate, but of course would be glad to sell it again 
at a profit. 

The scheme for Constance Sinclair’s restoration had pros- 
pered wonderfully, fiealth and strength had returned, 
and with these the clear light of reason. She had never 
doubted the identity of the little girl Lord Clanyarde 
brought her that winter evening with the cliild she had 
lost. 

She had readily accepted the story — a somewhat lame 
one — of the child’s rescue by some kind of German peas- 
ants who had brought it over to England, where, by a curi- 
ous chain of circumstances, Lord Clanyarde had come to 
know of its existence. The little girl was known to the 
whole household as Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair’s own child. 
There would be time enough by and by to reveal the im- 
posture. Even Martha Briggs — little ChristabeTs devoted 
nurse — had never suspected the trick that had been played 
upon her mistress. The only member of the household 
that had shown any particular curiosity or desire to know 
the ins and outs of this business was Melanie Duport. That 
young woman had asked as many questions as she could 
venture to put, and had appeared somewhat mystified by 
the course of events. 

So there had been peace at fiavenant during the early 
spring. Constance had been quietly happy in the little 
girl’s society, and in those joys which the convalescent feels 
when a world that has been darkened to the wandering 
mind reappears in all its light and beauty. Never had the 
woods and fields, the blue April sky and shining river, 
seemed so lovely in the eyes of Constance Sinclair as they 
appeared this year. fier love of music, of art, of all 
bright things, seemed intensified by that awful season of- 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


153 


darkness, in which these delights had been blotted from 
her mind. 

Her husband was tolerably kind to her, but spent much 
of his time awa^y from Davenant, and did not trouble her 
repose by filling the house with his rackety companions. 

Mr. "Wyatt came now and then for a day or two, but he 
was the only guest during this tranquil spring-time. 

Thus stood matters early in May, when Goblin won the 
Two Thousand Guineas, and, in the trainer’s phraseology, 
brought his owner a pot of money. 

Gilbert went up to London an hour after the race with 
his pot of money, or, at any rate, some portion of it, in his 
pocket. The rest would be paid up at Tattersall’s in due 
course. He had eaten nothing that day, having been too 
anxious about the result of the race to eat any breakfast, 
and too much elated by his triumph to eat any dinner. He 
had therefore been compelled to sustain nature upon brandy 
and soda, which is not exactly a sedative for a man of hot 
temper. He talked about Goblin and his own cleverness 
in getting hold of Goblin all the way up to London, and 
arrived at Shoreditch with his pulse galloping and his blood 
at fever heat. 

“ I’m not going to let that beggar have Davenant now,” 
he said to himself. This race brings me in something 
like twenty thou’, and I shall pot as much more over the 
Derby.” 

He called a hansom, and told the man to drive to 
Bloomsbury Square, intending to honor Mr. AVyatt, other- 
wise “ that beggar,” with a call. The cab rattled through 
the grimy city streets, all shining in the setting sun, which 
was fading redly on the westward facing windows of the 
grave old square when Gilbert alighted at Mr. Wyatt’s door. 

It was a fine old house which the solicitor occupied, one 
of the oldest and largest in the square, and there had been 
no attempt to disfigure a house in which Steele and his 
companions may have hobnobbed over the midnight bottle 
with such modern improvements as stucco without and gas 
within. 

A respectable-looking man-servant out of livery, admitted 
Mr. Sinclair into a square hall, oak-paneled and paved with 
black and white marble. The doors were oak, deeply set 
in the solid old walls, the architraves handsome enough for 
a modern palace. An old-fashioned oil lamp had just been 


154 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


lighted, and shed a sickly yellow light on some of the pan- 
els, while others reflected the crimson glow in the west, as 
if they had been splashed with blood. 

“ Your master at homer^^ asked Gilbert. 

“ Yes, sir. He has just dined. Shall I show you into 
the dining-room?^^ 

“ Yes; and you can bring me something to eat. Staples,^' 
replied Gilbert, who was quite at home in his solicitor's 
house. 

He went into the dining-room without giving the man 
time to announce him. James Wyatt sat in a lounging at- 
titude facing the western sun, with a claret jug and an un- 
touched dessert before him on the small oval table. That 
snug oval table of pollard oak had superseded the ponder- 
ous old mahogany twenty-two feet by six, at which Mr. 
Wyatt^s father and grandfather had been wont to entertain 
their friends. James Wyatt wanted no twenty-two-foofc 
table, for he never gave large parties. Cozy quartets, or 
even confidential UU-h-Ute banquets, were more to his lik- 
ing, and he gave as elaborate and careful a dinner to a 
man who dined with him alone as other men provide for a 
gathering that includes all the magnates of their circle. 
Were pollard oak gifted with speech, that snug oval board 
could have told many a thrilling tale of thirty per cent, 
which had been made, in the initiative stage, to seem onlj 
seven; of clients in the city who had money to lend, and . 
were so good-natured about lending it, on a safe mortgage 
or otherwise; and of that awful hour in which the same 
good, easy-going clients assumed quite another character, 
and were determined to foreclose, or to get their money 
back by any means. But happily for the maintenance of 
the decencies, Mr. Wyatt^s table was not loquacious, and 
the grave old room, with a few fine pictures on the oak 
paneling, and some valuable bronzes on the tall chimney- 
piece, looked respectable enough to inspire confidence in 
the most suspicious mind. If the pictures had been daubs, 
or the furniture gaudy, the effect would have been different. 
But the pictures looked like heir-looms and the furniture 
told of a chastened taste and a refinement that implied 
virtue and honor in the possessor thereof. 

“ Back already exclaimed Mr. Wyatt. “ How did 
Goblin go? Got a place?^^ 

“ Won in a canter,^ ^ answered Gilbert, flinging himself 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


155 


into a chair, and wiping his damp forehead. Never saw 
such a horse. There^s nothing to beat him. I was right 
about him, you see. 

Jackson was right about him, you mean. Have some 
dinner?^’ said Mr. Wyatt, ringing the bell. 

“ Thanks, I've ordered some. I donT stand upon 
punctilio with you, you see. 

“ I should be sorry if you did. Well, youVe made a 
heap of money, I suppose. 

‘^Yes, it’s a pretty good haul. Jackson raved like a 
lunatic about the horse. I was to put on every sixpence I 
had. I told the fellow I should be ruined if Goblin lost. 

^ He won’t lose,’ raved Jackson, dancing about like a 
maniac. ‘ You don’t know what that boss can do. I tried 
him last March against Lord Wildair’s Cowcumber, and 
put a hextra seven pound on him, and Cowcumber was 
nowhere. I felt sorry I hadn’t made it fourteen pound 
when I saw that blessed Cowcumber regular pumped. ’ I 
was bound to believe in the horse after that, wasn’t I?” 

Yes, if you could believe in the trainer.” 

‘‘ Well, the result has shown that he told me the truth. 
Oh, here comes the dinner. ” 

Gilbert made a weak attempt to eat some fish, and a still 
weaker attempt at a plate of lamb, but failed in both efforts. 

I’ve no appetite,” he said. ‘‘ You’d better give me a 
bandy and soda. ” 

“ How many brandies and sodas have you had to-day?” 
asked Wyatt, with an air of friendly anxiety, that tone of 
an easy-going mentor which long use had made natural to 
him. If James Wyatt’s clients went to the dogs, their ruin 
could never be laid at his door. He gave them such good 
advice upon the way, and parted with them with a friendly 
shake hands at the last, just before the dogs eat them. 

Ho you suppose I counted them?” demanded Gilbert, 
with a laugh. The sun was hot, and I was excited about 
Goblin. I had a pocket full of silver and it’s all gone, and 
I don’t think I’ve paid for anything except brandy and soda. 
That’s a rough way of calculating.” 

“ You’ve been drinking too much brandy, Gilbert.” 

‘‘ That’s my lookout.” 

Try some of that claret.” 

I’ll have brandy or nothing. ” 

Mr. Wyatt sighed and rang the bell, and then filled a 


156 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


}arge, cool-looking glass with the Lafitte, which he sipped 
in a calmly appreciative manner, with the air of a man 
who had never been thirsty in his life. 

Yes, Jim,” began Gilbert, harking back, “ IVe made 
a tidy haul to-day, and I expect a bigger haul on Wednes- 
day fortnight. And now, old fellow, I want you to do me 
a favor. 

“ Find a good investment for your winnings? With 
pleasure. I can get you a safe seven per cent.'’^ 

Thanks, that^s not the favor I mean. Ah, here^s the 
stuff,” as the man brought in a spirit stand and a supply 
of soda-water. “I want you to let me have Favenant 
back, Jim,” pouring brandy into a small tumbler, without 
looking at the quantity. “ You canT want the place for 
yourself, you know.” 

‘‘'Why not?” 

“ Well, my dear boy,” replied Mr. Sinclair, with the 
amiable candor which is sometimes induced by alcohol, 
“ you’re not the sort of man to play the country gentle- 
man. You wouldn’t find it pay. You may stop, you may 
shut up the shop if you will, but the odor of sixty per cent, 
will hang round you still. Y"ou understand, old fellow. 
The country people wouldn’t associate with you — they 
come to me, you know, for my wife’s sake; that’s a differ- 
ent thing. They wouldn’t cotton to you. They’re very 
food of borrowing money, but they don’t like money- 
lenders. You’ll find county society a dead letter, dear 
boy, and it would be folly to keep up such a place as Dave- 
nant for the reception of a pack of young fools from Lon- 
don. You can pluck such pigeons anywhere.” 

“ How kind of you to be so interested in my business.” 

“ Nothing like candor between friends,” said Gilbert. 

“ And you want me to sell Davenant? That’s curious. 
You were red-hot to sell a few months ago. ’ ’ 

“I was down on my luck just then. Things have 
changed for the better. And I find that I care more for 
the place than I thought I did. And I shouldn’t particu- 
larly like my neighbors to crow over me. It would look as 
if 1 were ruined to part with such a place as that.” 

“What a complete change of tone! I suppose your 
wife’s recovery has caused this alteration in your feelings.” 

Gilbert winced. It always stung him when James Wyatt 
spoke of his wife. The man’s tone implied some occult 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


wr 

knowledge. Speak as courteously as he might, there was 
always a lurking sneer in his speech. 

“ Come, Jim, 1^11 give you a handsome profit on your 
bargain. What more can you want? Name your own 
terms. I know you only bought the place as a specula- 
tion.^^ 

“ Suppose I did, and that the speculation has answered. 
How theiir^'^ 

“You mean that you have sold it again ?^^ 

“ Within four-and-twenty hours of my purchase.^^ 

“ By Jove, that^s sharp work!^^ cried Gilbert, bitterly 
disappointed. “ But perhaps the man who bought it would 
take a profit on his purchase. 

“Not much chance of that. The man who bought it 
would have given me almost any money for the place, if I 
had been inclined to take advantage of his eagerness to get 
it back again. 

“ Back again cried Gilbert, starting up with a vehe- 
mence that sent the soda-water bottles spinning across the 
table — “ to get it back again! Then youVe sold it to Sir 
Cyprian Davenant?^^ 

“ That's the man," answered Wyatt, opening his cigar- 
case, and affecting an extreme deliberation in the choice of 
a cigar. 

“ Jim Wyatt, you're a scoundrel!" roared Sinclair. 

‘ ‘ That's strong, and actionable into the bargain. Don't 
be a fool, Sinclair. You want to turn your estate into 
money. I give you the money you want, and take my 
property to the best market. Where is the wrong?" 

“ Where is the wrong? You duped, you hoodwinked 
me. You know how I hate that man. You know that I 
would rather cut my throat than give him any advantage. 
You know, or you ought to know, that my chief motive in 
buying Davenant was to humiliate him, to give my wife the 
place he might have given her, to show her which was the 
better man of the two., to set' my heel upon Sir Cyprian 
Davenant. And you swindle me out of my revenge; you 
put the winning card into my enemy's hand. You, my 
professed friend — you, who have made thousands out of 
me!" 

“ I grant the thousands," answered James Wyatt, look- 
ing up, and facing his accuser with a sparkle of defiance in 
his pale gray eyes. “People who want dirty work done 


158 


WEAYERS AND WEFT. 


must pay a good price for it. But as for friendship, please 
remember that I have never made any professions on that 
score. When have you ever treated me like a friend, Gil- 
bert Sinclair, or like an equal? When have you descended 
from the lofty stand-point of your coal-pits and your smelt- 
ing-works to my level? Not once. And you think be- 
cause you have made a social door-mat of me — because 
you have let me fetch and carry, and honored me with your 
confidence when you wanted to air your grievances, or get 
out of a difficulty — because, in one word, I have been use- 
ful, you think I am to call you my friend, and sacrifice my 
own interests to any amount in order to gratify your spite. 
You wanted to get rid of Davenant: I took it off your 
hands, and made a profit by the transaction. You don^’t 
suppose I would speculate five-and-thirty thousand to 
oblige you?^^ 

“ Judas cried Gilbert Sinclair, seizing his quondam 
friend by the throat, mad with passion. 

The soberer and calmer man had the better of mere brute 
force. James Wyatt shook off his assailant as easily as if 
he had been the athlete, and Gilbert the thinker and plot- 
ter. 

‘‘ Fool!^*’ he exclaimed, contemptuously, ‘^donT waste 
your breath in upbraiding me with treachery. Look at 
home. Look to your own house, and your pretty wife, 
who recovered her senses so quickly under the influence of 
her German physician. Have you had many visits from 
that German physician, Mr. Sinclair? Perhaps he times 
his visits so as to avoid meeting you. You spend a good 
deal of your life away from Davenant, you see. 

“ What do you mean?^^ gasped the other. 

‘‘ What I say. Look at home for treachery. I gave you 
a hint the night our German friend first came to your 
house, but you were too dull to take it.^^ 

Gilbert started, and looked at him intently. 

“ I remember what you said — ‘ Watch your wife.^ I did 
watch her. What then ?^^ 

‘‘You saw how he — the strange doctor — could awaken 
intelligence which no one else could rouse. You saw how 
she sung at his bidding — how tears flowed— for him. A 
case of electrobiology, one would suppose. 

“ Wyatt, I shall strangle you if you don’t put your mean- 
ing into the very plainest words!” 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


159 


And perhaps strangle me if I do. I must risk that, I 
suppose/" said Mr. Wyatt, with a laugh. “ Plainly, then, 
you should have made better use of your eyes that night, 
and seen through the disguise of a pair of smoke-colored 
spectacles and a gray wig and beard. The man who came 
to your house with Lord Olanyarde was Sir Cyprian Dave- 
nant."" 

“ It’s a lie!"" cried Gilbert Sinclair. 

It’s as true as that your wife"s recovery dates from the 
hour of his visit."" • 

You knew this — you — my legal adviser— friend — and 
you sold my estate to that man — knowing this!"" cried Sin- 
clair, almost inarticulate with passion. 

“ Again I must repeat that I never professed to be your 
friend. As your legal adviser, I had no right to interfere 
in your domestic affairs. As to the sale of the property, I 
can not see how that affects your position with Sir Cyprian. "" 

If Gilbert could have flown at the man"s throat again 
and strangled him, there might have been some satisfaction 
in that act of savagery. To call him bad names, and to 
see his sardonic grin as he heard them, was a poor relief, 
but all that civilization allowed. Gilbert hurled some of 
the hardest epithets in the vocabulary of abuse at that smil- 
ing traitor, and then flung himself out of the room and out 
of the house. 

The hansom was waiting for him — meekly as your most 
spirited hansom will wait on a balmy evening for a safe 
customer. The young May moon was up in the soft opal 
sky. 

Charing Cross Station — double fare,"" cried Mr. Sin- 
clair; and the cab-horse enlivened the shades of quiet 
Bloomsbury by the clatter of his poor chipped hoofs in a 
hand-gallop. 

:)c ^ « 

James Wyatt paced his room in the darkening shadows, 
deep in thought. He had sent a poisoned barb to the 
heart of the man he hated, and he was glad. There was 
not a petty slight of days gone by, not a small insolence, 
for which he had not paid himself handsomely by to-night"s 
work; but it was not to avenge the millionaire"s petty 
slights and small insolences, not toaiplif t the wounded crest 
of his own self-esteem, viper-like, that he had stung his 
enemy. His hatred of Gilbert Sinclair had a deeper root 


160 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


than wounded pride. .Disappointed love was its source. 
But for Gilbert Sinclair he might have been loved by the 
one woman whose regard he valued. Clara Walsiugham^s 
constancy to her old lover was the olfense that made Gil- 
bert loathsome to his quondam friend, and it was to gratify 
his own jealousy that he had aroused the demon of jealousy 
in his rival’s breast. 

“ He shall know the flavor of the anguish he has caused 
me,” thought Wyatt, “if his coarse soul can suffer as I 
have suffered for a woman’s sake. Whether his wife is 

f uilty or innocent, matters nothing to me. The pain will 
e his. If he were man enough to blow his brains out, 
now, there might be a chance for me with Clara. So long 
as he lives she will cling to the hope of winning him back. 
Where is she hiding, I wonder, and what is her scheme of 
life, while I am wearing my life out for her sake?” 

Mr. Wyatt had not seen Mrs. Walsingham since that 
interview in which she had refused to keep faith with him, 
flinging her promise to the winds. He had gone to Half- 
Moon Street on the following Saturday evening, d.etermined 
to make peace with her at any sacrifice of his own dignity, 
with the slavish pertinacity of a man who passionately 
loves. He had driven up to the door, expecting to ^ee the 
lighted windows shining out on the wintery street, to hear 
Herr Klavierschlager pounding the Erard, and the hum 
and twitter of many voices, as he went up the narrow 
flower-scented staircase; but to his surprise the windows 
were all dark, and a sleepy little maid-servant came to the 
door with a guttering tallow candle, and informed him that 
Mrs. Walsingham had gone abroad, the maid-servant knew 
not whither. 

“Was there no direction left for forwarding letters?” 
asked Mr. Wyatt. 

“ No, sir, not as I knows of. The hagent, p’r’aps, wot 
has the lettin’ of the ’ous might know.” 

Mr. Wyatt hunted out the house-agent on Monday morn- 
ing, but that useful member of society had received no in- 
formation about Mrs. Walsingham’s destination, whether 
she meant to travel or to be stationary. He was to let her 
house to a good tenant, and to communicate with her 
through her solicitor. 

Mr. Wyatt went to the solicitor, who politely refused to 
give his client’s address. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


161 


Perhaps she has gone into a convent,” thought James 
Wyatt, at his wits^ end; and this disappointment added not 
a little to the bitterness of his feelings toward that pofitable 
client of his, Gilbert Sinclair. 

% * * * 45 * * 

Staples, the butler, came in with the lamps, shut the 
solid old oak shutters, cleared the tables, and brought his 
master a cup of coffee, all in an orderly and respectable 
manner that was well worth his sixty pounds a year. Mr. 
Wyatt was a man who would not have kept a bad servant a 
week, and never parted with a good one. 

The postman^ s knock sounded on the ponderous door 
while Mr. Wyatt was sipping his coffee, and Staples came 
in with several letters on a silver waiter. 

James Wyatt spread them out before him thoughtfully, 
as if they were cards and he were calculating their value. 
Handsome creamy envelopes, thick and aristocratic, with 
armorial bearings on the seals; others blue and business- 
like, and unpretendingly inexpressive. One narrow little 
envelope, thin, green, and shiny. This was the first he 
opened. 

The letter it contained was written in a small scratching 
hand, unmistakably foreign, little curly tails to all the d'^s, 
a general scragginess in the y’s, a paucity of capitals. 

“ Why do you not let me see you, or write to me? Is it 
not that it is cruel, after so much of promises? You leave 
me to languish, without hope. Dream you that I shall 
content to be servant for always, after what you have prom- 
ised? But do not bdieve it. I have too much spirit. It 
must that I talk to you of all that at leisure, the eyes in the 
eyes, that I may see if you are true, if you have good inten- 
tions to my regard. Write me, and very quickly, my 
friend, it must that I have of your news. Always your 

“ Melanie. ” 

“ This comes of an innocent flirtation — your passer le 
temps — in a stupid country-house,’’^ said Mr. Wyatt, 
crumpling the letter savagely. “ This girl will worry my 
life out. I was a fool to amuse myself with such a danger- 
ous little viper. And if I were to be frank with her, and 
tell her to go about her business, she might make matters 
unpleasant for me. The law comes down rather heavily 


162 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


on anything in the shape of conspiracy, and that little 
affair at Schoenesthal might be made to assume that com- 
plexion. And the law never comes down so heavily a& 
when it gets its hoof on a man who has plenty to lose.. 
Your British jury, too, has no liking for a man who turns 
his superfluous capital to good account by lending it to 
fools. No, I must keep that Schoenesthal business out of 
the law courts at any cost. Melanie must be pensioned,, 
and sent back to her native valley, or her native slum — for 
I should think such an artful young person must have been 
born in some festering city alley rather than among vine- 
yards or orchards. 

Mr. Wyatt went to his writing-table and answered Mile* 
Duport’s letter without delay — briefly and cautiously. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

GILBERT ASKS A QUESTION. 

If Lord Clanyarde had been within easy reach, Gilbert 
Sinclair would have gone straightway to upbraid him with 
his treachery in bringing Sir Cyprian to Davenant disguised 
and in a false name; but Lord Clanyarde, finding himself 
at fifty years of age entirely unfettered by domestic in- 
cumbrances, was indulging his natural frivolity among more 
agreeable people than his serious and business-like fellow- 
countrymen. Lord Clanyarde was eating ices and playing 
dominos under the colonnades of Venice, with thoughts 
of moving to Tyrolean mountains whqn the weather grew 
too warm in the fair sea-girt city. 

So Gilbert, not being able to get at Lord Clanyarde^, 
nursed his wrath to keep it warm, and went straight home 
to Davenant Park, where Constance was leading her calm 
and happy life, seeing hardly anything of what the world 
calls “ society,^’ but surrounded by the people she had 
known since her childhood — the good old rector, who had 
christened her; the devoted little doctor, who had watched 
hp so patiently when her dull eyes had hardly recognized 
his familiar face; the school-mistress, the old pupils, the 
gray old gardeners, and sunburned gamekeepers; the 
gaffers and goodies who had been old when she was a baby, 
and seemed hardly any older for the twenty years that had 
passed over their heads since then. Cheeks a little more 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


163 


shriveled perhaps, brows more deeply wrinkled, shoulders 
a trifle more bent, but exactly the same appreciation of tea 
and tobacco, half crowns and new neckerchiefs, the Psalms 
and the rector's sermons. 

Never had spring seemed to her so beautiful as it seemed 
this year, when she led her little girl through the woods and 
showed her the newly awakened flowers, and told her the 
names of the birds that poured out such gushing songs of 
gladness in the warm bright noon. The child's lips began 
to shape isolated words — mam, mam, and birdie, fowers for 
flowers — divine language to the mother's ear. Never was 
a child happier or more fondly loved. Martha Briggs, 
nothing doubting, hugged this little waif to her honest 
heart; and even Melanie, who had a curious inward revul- 
sion from the child, had to pretend a most enthusiastic de- 
votion and deepest gratitude to Providence for the little 
one's restoration. Once, inspired by some familiar spirit 
of evil, she could not resist dropping a little poison into her 
mistress's cup of joy, 

“ Do you feel quite sure there has been no mistake, 
ma'am?" she asked. “ I sometimes fancy our darling 
could not have been saved. I saw her carried away by the 
current, carried past me like a straw, and it has never been 
quite explained how she was rescued." 

Constance looked at her with eyes on fire with indigna- 
tion. 

‘‘ Am I sure that this is my child?" she cried, clasping 
the baby to her breast. “ Am I sure of my own name, of 
my life? If all the rest of life were a dfeam or a shadow, 
I should know that Christabel was real and true. Who 
can deceive a mother?" 

“You were so ill when the little girl was brought 
home," suggested Melanie, with an air of conscientious 
doubt. 

“ Not too ill to remember my Christabel. We knew 
each other, did we not, darling? Our lips clung together 
.as if we had never been parted. Not know my own child, 
indeed! Never dare to make such a suggestion again, 
Melanie.^' 

After this Mile. Duport was discreetly silent on the sub- 
ject of this present Christabel's identity with the Christa- 
hel of the past; but- the time was to come when Constance 
•Sinclair's faith was to receive a ruder shock. 


164 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


Gilbert went home that evening after the Two Thonsand 
savage, with his mind full of scorpions. Goblin ^s success 
was as nothing to him. He hardly remembered that one 
of his horses had won a great race for the first time since 
he had. kept horses. He had counted on James Wyatt’s 
fidelity just as he had counted on his horse or his dog — a 
creature bought with his money, fed and housed by him. 
Wyatt had profited by him; Wyatt was bound to stand by 
him; and as to those various slights which he had put upon 
his confidential adviser at divers times, almost unconscious- 
ly, it had never occurred to him that there could be any 
galling wound left by such small stings, the venom whereof 
was to react upon himself. 

If he had heaped favors upon the man, if he had been 
the most unselfish and devoted of friends, he could not 
have felt James Wyatt’s treachery more keenly. He was 
angry with himself for having been so easy a dupe, for hav- 
ing given any man power to get the better of him. 

“ The whole thing is a planned revenge,” he thought. 
‘‘ Wyatt knew how it would gall me to see Sir Cyprian 
back at Havenant.^’ 

And Wyatt had flung a fire-brand into that revelation 
about the pretended German doctor. Could it be, Gilbert 
asked himself, or was it a malicious invention of Wyatt’s? 
Would Lord Clanyarde have lent himself to such a decep- 
tion? Even Lord Clanyarde might have been hoodwinked 
by his daughter’s lover. • 

“ I won’t accuse, her, not yet awhile,” he said to himself. 

It will be better to keep quiet and watch. I have been 
too often away. I have given her too much license. That 
innocent face of hers would deceive Satan himself. And I 
have allowed myself to think that there was no guile in her; 
that, although she has never loved me, she has never 
wronged me. Hard to find, after all, that I have judged 
her too leniently.” 

It was after midnight when Mr. Sinclair arrived at Dave- 
nant, and he had to ring up one of the servants to let him 
in, his return being altogether unlooked for. He did not 
see Constance until the next day, and by this time had re- 
gained the mastery of himself. The position of affairs be- 
tween husband and wife since Mrs. Sinclair’s recovery had 
been a kind of armed neutrality. Gilbert had never allud- 
ed to that awful day on which he had raised his hand 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


165 


against liis wife, nor had Constance. Doubtful whether 
she remembered that unhappy occurrence, and deeply 
ashamed of the brutality into which passion liad betrayed 
him, Mr. Sinclair wisely kept his own counsel. To apolo- 
gize might be to make a revelation. His remorse showed 
itself by increased civility to his wife, and a new deference 
to her feelings, for which she was duly grateful. Gentle, 
submissive always, she gave her husband no cause of 
offense, save that one rankling sore which had begun to 
gall him directly the triumphant sense of possession had 
lost its power to satisfy — the consciousness that he had 
never won her heart. This smoldering -fire needed but a 
spark of jealousy to raise a fatal flame. 

Constance expressed herself much pleased at Goblin^s 
success, when Gilbert announced the fact, with very iittle 
elation, on the day after the race. They were dining to- 
gether tete-a-tete in the spacious paneled room, which 
seemed so much too big for them. These ceremonious late 
dinners were Constance^s aversion. In her husband^s ab- 
sence she dined early with Cliristabel, and spent the long 
afternoons walking or driving, and came home at twilight 
to a social tea-party with Martha Briggs and baby. 

“ I didnT think you cared about race-horses,^' said Gil- 
bert, as if doubting the sincerity of his wife's congratula- 
tions. 

‘‘ Not in the abstract; they are such far-off creatures. 
One never gets on- intimate terms with them. They are 
like the strange animals which the Emperor Comrnodus 
brought to Rome— articles of luxury. But I am very glad 
your horse has won, Gilbert, on your account. " 

“ Yes, it's a great triumph for me. If I can win tho 
Derby I shall be satisfied. Racing is confoundedly expen- 
sive, and I've had quite enough of it. I think I shall sell 
Goblin and the whole stud after Epsom, and the new stables 
into the bargain, and then I shall improve that great bar- 
rack of a place in the North and settle down. I'm sick of 

this part of the world. It's too d d civilized," added 

Mr. Sinclair, forcibl}". 

“ Do you mean that you would leave Davenant?" asked 
Constance, with astonishment. 

‘‘Yes. I ought to have told you, by the way— Dave- 
nant ceases to be mine after midsummer-day. I've sold 
it." 


166 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


^old Davenant!^^ 

“ Yes. I have never really cared for the place, and I 
had a good offer for it while you were ill. Things were 
not looking very well in the North Just then, and 1 was in 
want of money. I dare say youTi be pleased when you 
hear who is the purchaser,^' added Gilbert, with an un- 
oomfortable smile. 

Constance seemed hardly to hear the latter part of his 
speech. 

To think that you should have sold Davenant — the 
dear old place 

“ I thought you did not care for it. 

Not Just at first, perhaps. It seemed too big for me. 
I liked shabby old Marchbrook better. But I have been so 
happy here lately, and it is so nice to live among people one 
has known all one^s life.^^ 

“Yes, old associations are sweetest,-'^ sneered Gilbert, 
the demon Jealousy getting the upper hand. 

“ But, after all, the place itself matters very little,’^ said 
Constance, anxious to avoid anything that might seem like 
upbraiding — no wife so conscientious in the discharge of 
her d uty as a good woman who does not love her husband. 

I should be Just as happy in any cottage in the neighbor- 
hood.^^ 

“ Especially if you had an old friend settled here,^^ said 
Gilbert. “You haven't asked me the name of my suc- 
»cessor; but perhaps you know. " 

“ How should I know?'^ 

“ You might have means of obtaining information.' 

■“ Who is the person, Gilbert?" 

Sir Cyprian Davenant." 

He watched her closely. Was the announcement a sur- 
prise, or did she know all about it, and was that look of 
grave astonishment a touch of social comedy? 

She looked at him earnestly for a minute, and grew 
somewhat paler, he thought, as if the very sound of his 
rival's name were a shock to her. 

“ Indeed! he has bought the old place again!" she said, 
quietly. “ That seems only right. But I thought he had 
gone back to Africa." 

“Did you really?" with a somewhat ironical elevation 
of his eyebrows. “ Well, I thought so too. . But it seems 
he is still in England. Oh, by the bye, 'do you remember 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


ler 


that German doctor who came to see you when you were 
ill?” 

There was a purpose in the abruptness of this question^ 
He wanted to take her otf her guard ; if possible to startle 
her into betraying herself. If there were any truth in 
Wyatt^s assertion, this question must be a startling one. 

Her calm look told him nothing. She was either inno- 
cent of all guile or the most consummate hypocrite. 

“ Yes, I can faintly remember. I can just recall that 
night like a dream. Papa and you coming into my room^.. 
and a curious-looking old man, with a kind voice — a voice 
that went to my heart, somehow. 

Gilbert started and frowned. 

Yes, I remember. It seems like a picture as I look 
back; your anxious looks, the fire-light shining on your 
faces. He asked me to sing, did he not? Yes, and the 
song made me cry. Oh, such blessed tears— they took a 
load off my mind. It was like the loosening of a band of 
iron round my head. And he spoke to me about Christa- 
bel, and told me to hope. Dear old man, I have reason to 
remember him. 

‘‘ Has he never been here since?” 

“ Never. How should he come, unless you or papa 
brought him?” 

No, to be sure. And you have no curiosity about him. 
— no desire to see him again?” 

Why should I be curious or anxious? He did not de- 
ceive me with false hope. My darling was restored by him.” 

‘‘ And you thank him for that?” 

I thank God for having saved my child. I th^nk that 
good old doctor for being the first to tell me to hope.” 

This much and no more could Gilbert’s closest questioning 
extort from his wife. What was he to think — that Wyatt 
was fooling him, or that Constance was past-mistress in dis- 
simulation?. He did not know what to think, and was mis- 
erable accordingly. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

READY FOR THE WORST. 

June roses were opening in the fiower-garden at Dave- 
nant, and Gilbert Sinclair had been leading a life of the 
purest domesticity for the last three weeks. It hung rather 


1G8 


WEAYERS AND WEFT. 


heavily upon him, thafc domestic life, for, though he loved 
his wife after liis own fashion, he was not fond of home joys 
or exclusively feminine society. But what will not a jeal- 
ous man endure when once his suspicions are aroused? 
Patient as the spider watching his prey, he waits for the 
unguarded moment which shall betray the horrid secret he 
fears yet longs to discover. 

Except to see Goblin win the Derby — a feat which that 
estimable animal performed with honor to himself and sat- 
isfaction to every one save the book* men — Gilbert had not 
been away from Davenaiit since the Two Thousand. He 
had been told to look for treachery at home, and he was 
there ready to seize the traitor. No mouchard in the se- 
cret service of the Parisian police was ever a closer spy 
than the husband who doubts yet dotes, suspects yet fondly 
loves. 

That he had seen nothing in all this time to confirm his 
doubts was not enough to convince Mr. Sinclair that those 
doubts were baseless. He was willing to imagine profound- 
est hypocrisy in the wife of his bosom, a brazen front under 
the semblance of a pure and innocent brow. Even that de- 
votion to her child might be a cover for a guiltier love. 
Her happiness, her tranquillity, gave him new ground for 
suspicion. Was there not some secret well-spring of con- 
tentment, some hidden source of delight, masked behind 
this fair show of maternal affection? 

These were the doubts which Gilbert Sinclair was per- 
petually revolving in his mind during this period of do- 
mestic bliss, and this was the aspect of affairs up to the 
fifteenth, of June. Ascot races were to begin on the six- 
teenth, and Goblin was to fulfill his third great engagement. 
This was an occasion before which even a husbanPs jeal- 
ous fears must give way, and Gilbert had made up his 
mind to see the horse run. He had not carried out his idea 
of selling Goblin after the Derby. Jackson, the trainer, 
had protested vehemently against such a breach of faith 
with him, who had made the horse. 

“ That there ^oss is to win the Leger,^^ said the indig- 
nant Jackson. “If he doiiT, ITl eat him, niff-skin and 
all. 

Gilbert felt that to part with such a horse, for ever so 
high a price, would be to cut up the goose that laid the 
golden eggs. 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


169 


‘‘ A liorse can^t go on winning great races forever, 
though. There must come a turn in the tide,^’ suggested 
Gilbert, sagely. We should get a pot of money for him 
now.^^ 

A gentleman couldnT sella ^oss that had Just won him 
the blue ribbon of the turf,’^ replied Jackson, with a burst 
of chivalrous feeling. “ It would be too mean.^^ 

Gilbert gave way to the finer feelings of his trainer, and 
took no step toward cutting short his career on the turf. 
Things were looking livelier in the coal-pit district, he told 
himself, and a few thousand a year more or less could not 
hurt him. He would carry out his original idea, take a 
place somewhere near Newmarket, and establish his wife 
and — the child there. 

Under ordinary circumstances he would have taken a 
house at Ascot during the race week for the accommodation 
of himself and a selection cf choice spirits with sporting 
tastes, where the nights might have been enlivened by 
blind hookey, or poker, or some equally enlightening recre- 
ation. But on this occasion Mr. Sinclair made no such 
comfortable arrangement, and determined to sleep at his 
hotel in town on the night after the great race. 

He was smoking his after-dinner cigar on the evening of 
the fifteenth, pacing slowly up and down the terrace in 
front of the open drawing-room windows, when a servant 
brought him his letters. 

The first he opened was from his trainer, who was in high 
spirits about Goblin. The next two or three were business 
letters of no importance. The last was in a strange hand, 
a niggling, scratchy little hand, which, if there be any ex- 
pression in penmanship, was suggestive of a mean and crafty 
nature in the writer. 

Gilbert tore open the envelope, expecting to find some 
insinuating “ tip ^hfrom a gentleman of the genus “ tout;’^ 
but the letter was not even so honest as a tip; it was that 
snake in the grass, an anonymous warning: 

If Mr. Sinclaire is away to-rnoro nite he wil mis an: 
oportunitie to learn sumthing he ouht to kno. If he want^s 
to kno a secret let im wattch the balconie of is wif^s room, 
be twin term and leven to-moro nite. 

‘‘A Friend. 


170 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


Such a letter falling into the hands of a generous- minded 
man would have aroused only contempt; but coming to a 
man who had given himself up as a prey to suspicion and 
jealousy, who had long been on the watch for domestic 
treachery, even this venomous scrawl became significant as 
the voice of Fate — an oracle to be obeyed at any cost. 

“ She has taken advantage of my intended absence al- 
ready, and has made an appointment with her lover/^ 
thought Gilbert Sinclair. “ This warning comes from one 
of my servants, I dare say, some scullery-maid, who has 
iound out my wife^s infamy, and pities the deluded hus- 
band. Father hard to swallow pity from such a quarter.-'^ 

Then came the natural reaction. 

‘‘ Is it a hoax, I wonder — a trick played upon me by 
some dismissed underling? Yet how should any one know 
how to put his finger on the spot that galls? Unless it were 
that scoundrel Wyatt, who hates me like poison. Well, a 
the least, I can take the hint, and be on the watch. God 
help Cyprian Davenant if he crosses my threshold with evil 
intent! He may have deceived me once. He shahiH de- 
ceive me again. 

Mr. Sinclair went to Ascot next day as he had intended. 
Any change in his plans would have put his wife upon her 
guard. He went to the races, looking uncommonly glum, 
as his friends informed him; so gloomy, indeed, were his 
looks that some of his intimates made liaste to hedge their 
bets about Goblin, making very sure that the Derby winner 
had been seized by some sudden indisposition. The event 
rewarded their caution, for Goblin, although brought up to 
the starting-post in magnificent condition, failed to get a 
place. Gilbert bore his disappointment with supreme 
stoicism. Goblin’s victory would not have made him smile; ■ 
his failure hardly touched him. It was provoking, of 
course; but Destiny and Mr. Sinclair had long been at odds; 
it was only another item added to an old account. 

He drove to the station directly Goblin’s race was over, 
and as there was another race to come, he got a place in the 
train easily. It started immediately, and he was in London 
before seven o’clock, and on his way to Davenant at eight. 
He had not stopped to dine. A biscuit and a glass of brandy 
and soda were all he cared to take iii his present frame of 
mind. 

It was striking nine as he left the quiet little Kentish 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


171 


Btation, not quite clear as to what his next step ought to be^ 
He had been told to watch his wife^^s room between ten and 
eleven. To do this with any effect, he must get into the 
house unobserved, or find a safe post of observation in the 
garden. To announce his return home would be, of course,, 
to destroy his chance of making any discovery; and by this 
time he had made up his mind that there was domestic 
treachery to be discovered. As to the means, he cared little 
or nothing. To meet treachery with treachery could be ne 
dishonor. 

It was dusk, the sweet summer dusk, when he entered 
the park through a gate seldom used by any one but the 
gamekeepers or servants. The nightingales were breaking 
out into sudden gushes of melody, calling and answering 
one another from distant clumps of chestnut or beech, but 
Mr. Sinclair took no heed of the nightingales. In his hap- 
piest frame of mind that melodious jug-jugging would have 
made no particular impression upon his unsensitive ear; to- 
night all senses were more or less in abeyance. He found 
his way along the narrow footpath mechanically, looking 
neither to the right nor to the left, and only roused him- 
self when he came within sight of the house. 

How to get in unobserved and reach his room without 
meeting any of the servants was the question. 

A moment^s reflection showed him that this ought to be 
easy enough. Half past nine o’clock was the servants’ 
supper hour at Havenant, and meals in the servants’ hall 
are an institution which even domestic convulsions leave 
unshaken. A funeral makes no difference in the divine 
right of servants to dine and sup at a certain hour; a wed- 
ding may cause some supererogatory feasting, but can hard- 
ly overthrow the regular order of the daily meals. Mr. 
Sinclair had no fear, therefore, of any alteration in the 
routine of the household ; and he knew by experience that 
his servants liked to take their time at the social evening 
meal. 

It was twenty minutes to ten when he stopped for a min- 
ute or so in the shrubbery to consider his plans. Between 
ten and eleven, said the anonymous letter. He had no 
time to lose. 

He skirted the lawn in front of the drawing-room windows, 
keeping in the shadow of the trees. The windows were all 
open, and he could see the whole of the room. Lamps were 


172 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


burning on the table, candles on the open piano, but his 
wife was not there. He went in at one of the windows. 
The child’s toys were lying on the floor by Constance’s 
favorite chair, and an open work-basket, a little pile of 
books on a gypsy table, showed that the room had been 
lately occupied. 

She has gone to the balcony-room to keep her appoint- 
ment,” he thought, savagely, for by this time he had ac- 
cepted the anonymous warning as a truth. 

The hall was as empty as the drawing-roOm, the lamps 
burned dimly, being the last invention in lamps that 
do not illuminate. Gilbert went softly up the shallow old 
staircase to the corridor which ran the length of the house, 
and ended at the door of his own snuggery. He reached this 
door without meeting any one, went quietly into the room, 
and locked the door. The oriel- window of his room com- 
manded the balcony room, which was recessed in the south- 
ern front, between two projecting wings. There could be 
no better post of observation for the man who had been 
told to watch the garden approach to his wife’s rooms. 

There were matches and candles on the mantel-piece, 
but to strike a light would be to make his presence known 
to any one in the balcony room, so Gilbert waited quietly 
in the" half darkness of a summer night, and found what he 
wanted easily enough by the sense of touch. There was no 
moon yet, but a few stars were shining faintly in the calm 
gray sky. The windows of the balcony room were dark, 
and one stood open — the one nearest the iron stair. Gilbert 
observed this. 

“ She is sitting there in the dark,” he thought, “ wait- 
ing for him. That dark room, that open window, look like 
guilt. Why has she not her lamp lighted, and her music 
or her books? Ho; she has something else to think of. ” 

His guns were arranged in artistic order above the chim- 
ney-piece — a costly collection, with all the latest improve- 
ments in sporting guns. His hands wandered here and 
there, among the stocks till they came to a favorite rifle, the 
lightest in his collection, and one of the surest. He had 
shot many a royal stag with it beyond the Tweed. He took 
down this gun, went to a drawer where he kept ammuni- 
tion, and selected it and loaded his gun in a steady, busi- 
ness-like manner. There was no faltering of the hand that 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


173 


dropped the cartridge into its place, though that hand 
meant murder. 

“ He refused to fight me/^ Gilbert Sinclair said to him- 
self. “ He lied to me until I was fool enough to believe 
his lies. I gave him fair warning. He has tricked and in- 
sulted me in the face of that warning. He has entered my 
house once as an impostor and a liar. If he tries to enter 
it a second time as a thief and a seducer, his blood be upon 
his own head. 


CHAPTER XXVr. 

CAUGHT IN THE TOILS. 

Ten o’clock struck with sweet and solemn chime from 
the old square tower of the parish church as Gilbert Sin- 
clair opened the lattice and stood by the open window of 
his dressing-room waiting. There was not a leaf stirring 
in the garden, not a shadow save the motionless shadows of 
the trees. No light in the windows of the balcony room. 
The stars brightened in the clear gray, and in the soft twi- 
light of summer all things were dimly defined — not dark, 
but shadowy. '■ 

The quarter chimed from the church tower behind the 
trees yonder, and still there was no movement in the gar- 
den. Gilbert stood motionless, his watch divided between 
the old Dutch garden with its geometrical flower-beds and 
«tone sun-dial, and the windows of the balcony room. As 
the sound of the church-clock dwindled slowly into silence, 
a light appeared in the center window, a candle held in a 
woman’s hand, and raised above her head. Gilbert could 
but faintly distinguish the dark figure in the feeble glimmer 
of that single caudle before figure and light vanished. 

A signal, evidently, for a minute later a man’s figure 
appeared from the angle of the hedge, where it had been 
hidden in shadow. A man — tall, strongly built — yes, just 
the figure that patient watcher expected — stepped lightly 
across the garden, carefully keeping to the narrow gravel- 
paths, leaving no tell-tale footprint on flower-bed or box- 
border. He reached the iron stair, mounted it swiftly, had 
his foot on the balcony, when Gilbert Sinclair fired, with the 
unerring aim of a practiced sportsman and the firm hand 
of a man who has made up his mind for the worst. 


174 WEAVERS AND WEFT. 

The figure reeled, swayed for a moment on the topmost 
step, and then rolled backward down the light iron stair, 
shaking it with the force of the fall, and sunk in a heap on 
the gravel-path below. 

Gilbert waited, expecting to be thrilled by a woman's 
piercing shriek, the despairing cry of a guilty soul; but na 
such cry came. All was darkness in the balcony” room. 
He fancied he saw a figure approach the window and look 
out, but whatever that shape was it vanished before he could 
verify his doubts. 

He went over to the chimney-piece and put away his gun 
as coolly as if the purpose for which he had just used it were 
the most ordinary business of daily life; but this mechani- 
cal tranquillity had very little significance. It was rather 
the stolidity of a sleep-walker than the calmness of a mind 
that realizes the weight and measure of its acts. He went 
back to the window. There lay the figure, huddled in a 
formless heap as it had fallen, hideously foreshortened from 
Gilbert's point of sight. The open hands clutched the loose 
gravel. No sound, no light yet in the balcony room. 

“ She does not know what has happened,'^ said Gilbert, 
grimly. “ I had better go and tell her. 

He unlocked his door and went out in the corridor. His 
wife’s bedroom opened out of the balcony room. The child 
slept in a smaller room adjoining that. He went into the 
balcony room and found it empty, then opened the bed- 
room door and paused on the threshold, looking in. 

Impossible to imagine a more peaceful picture than that 
which met the husband’s eyes. A night-lamp shed a faint 
light over the white-curtained bed, an open book and an 
extinguished candle on a little table by the bedside showed 
that Constance had read herself to sleep. The door of the- 
inner room stood half open, and Gilbert could see the little 
white crib, and the sleeping child. The mother’s face was 
hardly less placid in its repose than the child’s. 

Gilbert Sinclair felt as if this world and this life were 
one inextricable confusion. The anonymous letter had 
told him where and when to watch — and the writer of that 
letter had kept faith with him so far, since he had not 
watched in vain — but this spectacle of innocent repose, the 
mother sleeping near the child, was hardly in keeping. Gil- 
bert paused irresolute, and then went to his wife’s bedside 
and roused her roughly with his strong hand upon her arm. 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 175 

The dark blue eyes opened suddenly and looked at him full 
of bewilderment. 

“Gilbert! Back to-night? I didnT expect you. Why 
do you look at me like that? What has happened 

“ Can’t you guess? You didn’t expect me. You had 
made your plans accordingly. You had made an appoint- 
ment with your lover.” 

“ Gilbert, are you mad?” 

He has not disappointed you — he is here. Get up and 
come and see him. Quick. He is waiting.” 

“ Gilbert, what have you been doing? where have you 
been? Calm yourself, for Heaven’s sake.” 

She had risen and put on her slippers and dressing-gown, 
scared by her husband’s look and the words, not knowing 
whether to think him mad or drunk — recalling with a 
shudder that other scene in the summer-house, and expect- 
ing some new violence. He would kill her, perhaps. She 
trembled a little, believing herself in the power of a mad- 
man, but tried to be calm. 

“ Come,” he said, grasping her wrist, “ I am too much 
a gentleman to let your lover wait yonder — on the thresh- 
old of his own house, too. Strange that he should try to 
sneak in like a burglar; when he will be master here in a 
few days.” 

He dragged her into the next room, and to the balcony. 

“ Pray don’t be so violent, Gilbert. I will come any- 
where you please,” she said, gravely. 

From the balcony she saw that prostrate figure at the 
foot of the stairs, and gave a faint cry of horror. 

“ Gilbert, what have you done?” 

“ My duty as a man. I should loathe myself if I had 
done less.” 

She followed him down the steps, trembling in every 
limb, and clung to him as he knelt by the motionless figure, 
and turned the face upward to the faint light of a new risen 
moon. 

A very familiar face, but not the one Gilbert Sinclair ex- 
pected to see. The face of his ally, James Wyatt, gray 
with the dull gray of death, but not distorted. A mean, 
false face, in life or death; but death brought out the dom- 
inant expression a little more forcibly than life had done. 

“ Gilbert, what have you done?” repeated Constance, 
sobbing hysterically. 


176 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


“ Murder/^ answered her husband, with a stolid despaiiv 
“ I hated this fellow badly enough, but I didn^t mean to 
kill him. I meant to kill Sir Cyprian Davenant, with 
whom you had made an appointment to-night, counting on 
my absence.'^ 

“ Gilbert, what have I ever done that you should think 
me the vilest of women? I have never wronged you by 
one thought about Cyprian Davenant which ycu might not 
know, I have never spoken a word to him wliich you might 
not hear — you and all the world. Your jealousy of him 
has been madness from first to last, and now it has ended in 
murder. ” 

“ 1 have been trapped somehow. Some enemy has set a 
snare for tiie.’^ 

‘‘ What are you to do? Oh, Gilbert, is he dead?^^ 

“ Yes; the bullet finished him. I aimed under his: 
shoulder, where I knew it would be fatal. What am I to 
do? — cut and run, I suppose. 

‘‘ Yes, go, go; it is your only chance. No one knows 
yet. Go, for God’s sake, this moment.’^ 

“And leave you with a corpse on the premises — rather 
cowardly that.” 

“ Don’t think of mewt is life or death for you. You 
must go, Gilbert. There is no help. Go, or you will bo 
taken and tried and hanged,” cried Constance, clinging to 
the iron rail, trembling, very cold, the ground reeling under 
her feet. 

“ Yes, that’s the natural sequence. Fool, fool, fool! An 
anonymous scribbler. W hat can have brought him here, 
and to the windows of your room? Constance, what does it 
mean? Do you know why this man came?” 

But Constance could not answer him. She had fallen, 
fainting, on the iron stair. 

Gilbert carried her back to her room, and laid her on her 
bed. She would come to her senses soon enough, no doubt, 

E oor wretch, he thought, hopelessly. He hurried back to 
is victim, intent upon finding some clew to Wyatt’s pres- 
ence in that place to-night. He. ransacked the dead man’s 

E ockets, took out a bundle of letters, put them in his 
reast-pocket, and left the garden by the little gate in the 
holly hedge. The church-clock chimed the half hour as he 
entered the park. It seemed to him as if that last quarter 
of an hour had been half a life-time. Now for the first 


WEAVERS AiqD WEFT. 


177 


time he drew breath, and began to think what he ought fco 
do. Cut and run; yes, as his wife said, that was about his 
only chance. 

He stopped for a minute among the shadows of the tall 
old elms, gaunt, ragged old trunks from which wintery 
blasts and summer storms had swept many a limb, stopped 
to “ pull himself together,^'’ in his own phraseology, and 
settle what he should do. 

There was an up train — the last — due at the little station 
yonder at ten minutes before eleven. 'If he could catch 
that and sleep at his old hotel — the place where he was 
known — and his rooms taken for to-night? He would have 
to run for it, but it might be done; and there was an alibi 
established at once, provided no one saw him at the station. 

He reached the rough little by-road leading to the station, 
breathless, as the bell rang. He did not go into the sta- 
tion, where the porters might have recognized him, but 
scrambled up the embankment upon which the station- 
master grew his potatoes and strawberry plants, and was 
on the platform, at the end furthest from the waiting-room 
and ticket oiSdce, as the train came in. It was full of 
market people, soldiers or militia, noisy excursionists. He 
opened a crowded third-class carriage with his key and got 
in among the rabble. A sergeant in an advanced state of 
beer was inclined to resent the intrusion, a woman with a 
baby seconded the sergeant. The atmosphere was cloudy 
with the reek of bad tobacco. Not much chance of recog- 
nition here. 

He had his season ticket, but did not care to show it. 
The train had only come from Maidstone. He thought it 
safer to pay his fare through at the station where tickets 
were examined. 

It was not quite midnight when Mr. Sinclair drove up to 
his hotel — a small house in St. James's, chiefly affected 
by men about town. 

Boom ready, James? Yes, of course it is. You got 
my telegram yesterday. Been dining with some fellows. 
You can bring me a brandy and soda upstairs. That's 
all." 

‘‘ Sorry the horse lost, sir," said the man, with respect- 
ful sympathy. 

What horse?" asked Gilbert, with a vacant look. 

Beg your pardon, sir— Goblin, sir. Thought he was 


178 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


safe to win the cup. Took the liberty to make my little 
venture on him. You bein^ a old customer, you see, sir, 
and all of us feelin^ interested in him on that account. 

“ That was a good fellow. The ground was too hard 
lor him — goes better in the dirt. 

He went up to his bedroom after this brief colloquy, 
leaving the head waiter under the impression that Mr. Sin- 
clair had been dining rather more freely than usual. 

“ HidnT seem to understand me when I spoke to him 
about his own 'oss,'’^ said the waiter to his friends in coun- 
cil ; stared at me reglar mazed. 

“Ah, pore feller, he’s ’it pretty ’ard to-day, you may 
depend.” ' 

Mr. Sinclair’s last order to the waiter who carried the 
brandy and soda to his bedroom was to be called at half 
past six next morning. 

“ You’ll have a cab at the door at a quarter past seven,” 
he said; “ I want to catch the seven-thirty train into Kent. 
I ought to have got home to-night if I could have done it. ■” 

“ Yes, sir — half past seven, sir. Anything particular 
you would like for breakfast?” 

“Oh, anything.” 

“A bit of fish, sir, and a spatch-cock, or a devil?” sug- 
gested the waiter, pertinaciously. Nothing can subdue that 
solicitude to obtain an order which is the waiter’s ruling 
passion. 

“Fish — flesh — anything,” cried Gilbert, kicking off his 
boots. 

“ A salmon cutlet, sir, with Dutch soss?” 

“ An elephant, if you like. Get me the cab at a quar- 
ter past seven. A hansom, with a good horse. ” 

Yes, sir, an ’ansom and. a fast ’oss. Yes, sir. Tea or 
coffee, sir?” 

Mr. Sinclair banged his door in the waiter’s face. 

“The ‘Baron Osy ’ starts at eight to-morrow,” said 
Gilbert, referring to his Bradshaw, the only literature he 
carried about him constantly. “ I shall be in Antwerp on 
Saturday.” 

Then, after a pause, he asked himself, 

“ Might it not be wiser to hold my ground and trust to 
the chapter of accidents? Who is to bring that traitor’s 
death home to me? I sleep here to-night. No one saw 
me at Davenant. ” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


179 


Again, after another interval of thought, 

‘‘ How can I be sure that no one saw me yonder? These 
things are always brought home to a man somehow. A 
child — a dog — an idiot — the halt — dumb — blind — some un- 
expected witness rises up against him, and puts the rope 
round his neck. My best chance is to put the seas between 
me and a coroner^s jury. First, Antwerp, and then a 
steamer for South America — Carthagena, or some lawless 
place where a man might laugh at extradition treaties, 
besides, I^m sick of it all at home — too sick to stand to my 
guns and outface suspicion — and live in this country with 
that dead man's face staring at me. No, I'll try some 
strange, wild land, a new life that will be fiery enough to 
burn out the memory of the old one." 

He went to the mantel-piece, where a pair of wax candles 
were burning with that air of elegant luxury by which your 
skilled hotel-keeper seeks to reconcile his customers to the 
extravagance of his charges, and took James Wyatt's let- 
ters out of his breast pocket. 

The first three or four he looked at were business letters, 
chiefiy entreaties to “ renew " or carry over, or provide for 
some little bill just falling due, ‘Mike the best cf good 
fellows." These Gilbert laid aside after a glance; but 
there was one at which he started as if he had touched a 
snake. It was in the same hand as the anonymous letter 
that had made him a murderer. 

This, in plain words, was the gist of the letter — badly 
spelled, with a foreigner's uncouth orthography; curiously 
worded, with a mixture of foreign idioms and illiterate 
English. 

“ You tell me that all your promises amount to nothing 
—that you never meant to marr^’ me. Rather hard to dis- 
cover this after having nursed my delusion so long. I was 
to be a lady. I was to take my place in the world. Bah! 
all lies! Lies, like your pretended love — your pretended 
admiration. You ask me ta go back to my country, and 
promise if I consent to this I shall be provided for — hand- 
somely — with fifty pounds a year for life— whether I remain 
single or marry — an independence for a girl like me, you 
say. So't. But who is to secure to me this independence? 
It may be paid for a year — two years, perhaps— and then 
cease. It must that I see you, Mr. Wyatt. It must I hear 


180 


WEAVERS AXD WEFT. 


of your own lips what you mean. Your soft tongue is too 
strong for me. You could persuade me to do anything, to 
go any where, to serve and obey you as your slave, but I 
can not obey to your letters. I do not understand. I 
want to see things clearly — to have your views explained to 
me. 

‘‘You say that I am passionate — vindictive — and that 
when last we met — and, ah! how kind it was of you to 
come here at my request! — my violence almost frightened 
you. Believe me, I will not so offend again. Come but 
once more — only come and assure me with your own lips 
that this miserable pittance shall be paid to me honorably 
year by year — give me but your word for that, and I will 
go back to my friends in the south of France — ah — co)nme 
ce sera loin de toi, mon ami — and you shall hear of me 
never again. 

“ You tell me that you are no longer friends with Mr. 
Sinclair, and that you can not come to his house, and that 
if I want to see you it must that I come to you. That is 
not possible without throwing up my place altogether, for 
the housekeeper here is of the most tyrannical, and gives 
no servant leave to absent herself, and I will not give up 
this service until I am assured of my future. Give me, 
then, a proof of your good faith by coming here. Give me 
my pittance a year in advance, and show me how it is to be 
afterward paid me, and I will trouble you no more. 

“ It will be very easy for you to come on the evening of 
the 18th. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair are going to Ascot on the 
15th; they will be absent some days. . You know your way 
to the balcony room. I shall be waiting for you there be- 
tween ten and eleven on Thursday evening, and I will 
show a light in the center window as a signal that the coast 
is clear. 

“ Come if you wish me to trust you. Come if you do 
not wish me to betray you. 

“ Yours, as you treat me, 

‘‘Melanie Duport.'^ 

This letter showed Gilbert Sinclair the diabolical trap 
that had been set for James Wyatt and for himself. He 
had been made the instrument of the French woman ^s re- 
venge. 

In the face of this revelation what was he to do. Carry 


WEAVERS AND VEFT. 


181 


out his intention; go to South America, and leave his wife 
in the power of this fiend? Gilbert Sinclair was not bad 
enough for that. 

“ I’ll risk it, and go back to Davenant,” he said. 

‘‘ How do I know what this wretch might do? She 
might lay her lover’s death at my wife’s door, drag my 
wife’s name in the gutter. No; at any hazard to myself 
I must be there, and, if necessary, this letter must be shown 
at the inquest. ” 


CHAPTER XXVIL 
crowner’s quest. 

It was between six and seven o’clock in the morning 
when one of the gardeners at Davenant, going with a bar- 
rowful of bedding-out plants to the old Dutch garden, 
found James Wyatt lying dead at the bottom of the iron 
staircase. He rushed into the house for aid, and brought 
out the newly risen men-servants, who had not yet fortified 
exhausted nature with an Elizabethan breakfast of beef and 
beer. All was hubbub and confusion; one messenger ran 
for the doctor, another for the police. The dead man was 
carried into a great disused brew- house at the back of the 
stables, as a place where he would not hurt any one’s feel- 
ings, as the butler remarked, considerately. 

“ Whatahorful thing!” said one house-maid, and “ Who 
could have done it?” ejaculated another, as the news of 
the catastrophe spread through the house. 

Who was to tell Mrs. Sinclair? 

Martha Briggs took thac office upon herself. She had 
just filled Miss Christabel’s bath, but the darling was not 
awake yet, and Mrs. Sinclair was most likely still asleep. 

“ I’ll tell her when I take her her cup of tea at half past 
seven,” said Martha, looking pale and scared. 

“ Where’s Melanie?” asked the upper house-maid. 

She asked leave to go to London early this morning, 
to get herself some things, as if Maidstone wasn’t good 
enough for her. She wanted to go by the first train to have 
a long day of it, she said. The first train goes at six. She 
must have left this house at half past five.” 

“ That’s queer,” said the house-maid; “ but I never had 
much opinion of foreigners. 


182 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


‘‘ What could have brought Mr. Wyatt here last nighty 
and to the bottom of those stepsr^' speculated Martha- 
Briggs. “Why didn’t he go to the hall-door as usual? It 
seems so strange!” 

“ It seems stranger that there should be anyone there to 
Bhoot him,” remarked the house-maid. 

Mrs. Sinclair heard of the morning’s discovery with a 
calmness which astonished her hand-maiden. 

“I must telegraph for my husband,” she said; and a 
telegram was dispatched without delay, addressed to Gil- 
bert at his hotel in St. James’s. 

The police were on the alert by this time, examining the 
scene of the murder. The coroner appointed three o’clock 
in the afternoon for his inquir}^ which was to be held in 
the hall at Davenant. This would give time for summon- 
ing the jury. 

Constance was sitting at breakfast, very pale but quite 
self-possessed, when Gilbert Sinclair walked in from the 
lawn. 

“ Gilbert,” she cried, “ what folly! I thought you were 
miles away — across the channel by this time.” 

“ No, Constance, I am not such a poltroon. We have 
not been a very happy couple, you and I, and God knows 
I am heartily tired of my life in this country, b’ut I am not 
base enough to leave you in the lurch. Who can tell what 
scandal might arise against you? No, my dear, I shall 
stop, even if the end shall be a rope.” 

“ Gilbert, for mercy’s sake! Oh, Gilbert!” she cried, 
wringing her hands, “ how could you do this dreadful 
thing?” 

“ How could I? I thought I was doing my duty as a 
man. I was told that a man was to be here — your secret 
visitor. The man was here at the^very hour I had been 
told to expect him. I saw him entering your room by 
stealth. What could I think but the worst? And think- 
ing as I did, I had a right to kill him.” 

“ No, Gilbert, no. God has given no man the right to 
shed his brother’s blood.” 

“ Except Jack Ketch, I suppose. God has given men 
the instinct of honor, and honor teaches every honest man 
to kill the seducer of his wife or daughter.” 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


183 


The inquesfc was held at three. Gilbert and several of 
his household, notably the gardener who found the body, 
were examined. Dr. Webb gave his evidence as to the 
nature of the wound, and the hour at which death must, in 
all probability, have occurred. 

“ Did you sleep at Davenant last night, Mr. Sinclair?^’ 
asked the coroner. 

“No; I only came up from Ascot yesterday evening, 
and spent the night in London. 

“Where?’" 

“ At Hildred’s Hotel, Jermyn Street.” 

• “ Did you dine at the hotel?’" 

■“No; I dined at Francatelli’s. ’" 

This was a venture. Francatelli’s would doubtless have 
been crowded on the night after Ascot, and it would be 
diiSScult for the waiters to assert that Mr. Sinclair had not 
dined there. 

“You dined at Francatelli’s. Where is that?” asked 
one of the jury, with rural innocence. 

“ It is a hotel and restaurant in Piccadilly.” 

“ How long were you at Francatelli’s?” asked the 
coroner. 

“ I really can not tell. My horse had been running at 
Ascot, and losing. I was somewhat excited. I may have 
gone into Francatelli’s at eight, and gone out again be- 
tween nine and ten. ” 

“ And from Francatelli’s you went to your hotel?” 

“ No,” said Gilbert, feeling that there was a hiatus of 
a couple of hours here. “ I went into the Haymarket 
Theater for an hour or two.” 

“ If this fellow asks me what I saw there, I’m done for,"’ 
he thought; but happily the coroner was not so much on 
the alert as to put that question. 

“ Have you any idea what brought the deceased to your 
house last night, when you were known to be absent?” 

“ I have a very clear idea.” 

“ Be kind enough to tell us all you can.” 

“ Coming from the station this morning by a foot-path 
through the park, the way by which the deceased always 
came to my house when he did not drive from the station, 
I found a letter which it seems to me that he must have 
dropped there last night.” 


184 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


‘‘ You found a letter dropped by the deceased in Dave- 
nant Park?” 

“ I found this letter addressed to Mr. Wyatt, which I 
conclude must have been dropped by him last night.” 

Gilbert handed the coroner Melauie^s letter, which had 
now assumed a crumpled and dilapidated appearance, as of 
a letter that had lain all night in the dew and dirt of the 
foot-path under the trees. 

The coroner puzzled through the letter, reading it aloud,, 
with various mistakes and pullings up and tryings back, the 
jury listening open-mouthed. 

“ This clearly indicates that Mr. Wyatt came here by 
appointment,” remarked the coroner, sagely. Who is this 
Melanie Duport?” 

“ My wife^s maid.^^ 

“Why has she not been called?” 

It was explained to the coroner that Melanie Duport was 
missing. 

After this, the jury having duly viewed the body, or, at 
any rate, made believe to view it, the inquest was ad- 
journed to give the local police time to make their investi- 
gations, though what they were to investigate seemed a 
somewhat puzzling question. 

“ They’ll bring some London detectives, who will look 
into my room, see those guns, and then put two and two 
together,^’ thought Gilbert. “ I don’t suppose my alibi 
would hold water at the assizes. A jury would want somo 
independent evidence to sustain my account of my time 
between seven o’clock and midnight yesterday. ” 

* * * * sfs * 

The inquest was adjourned from Friday, the day after 
the murder, until the following Monday. When that day 
came Gilbert Sinclair was missing London detectives 
had come to the aid of the local constabulary, but too late to 
keep an eye upon the movements of Mr. Sinclair. That 
gentleman contrived to leave Liverpool on Saturday morn- 
ing, in a steamer bound for Rio. His disappearance gave 
a new aspect to the case, and aroused suspicions of his 
guilt. His household knew nothing of his whereabouts^ 
He had told Mrs. Sinclair and his body-servant that he was 
going to Newmarket, and would be back in time for the 
inquiry on Monday; but on an inquiry being telegraphed 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 185 

to his Newmarket establishment, the reply was to the effect 
that Mr. Sinclair had not been seen there. 

The police had occupied the interval between Friday and 
Monday in the endeavor to find Mile. Duport, but up to 
noon on Monday that young lady had not been heard of, 
nor did any new fact arise at the inquest. 

Enlightened by Gilbert Sinclair's disappearance, the police 
took a bolder flight. They discovered that the oriel-win- 
dow in Mr. Sinclair's study afforded an excellent point of 
aim for the iron staircase at the foot of which the murdered 
man had been found. They also opined that the handsome 
collection of guns in that apartment suggested a ready way 
of accounting for the mode and manner of the act. Sub- 
sequent investigation showed that the deer-stalker's rifle in 
that collection carried a bullet exactly corresponding in 
size and shape to the bullet extracted from James Wyatt's 
death-wound. Professional acumen led the investigators 
further to perceive that Mr. Sinclair's own account of his 
time on the evening of the murder was not supported by 
any other evidence, and that it was possible for him to 
have come back to Davenant, and to have entered and left 
his house unseen by any of the, household. 

These suspicions were in some measure confirmed by the 
statement of the waiter at Hildred's Hotel, who described 
Mr. Sinclair's arrival at that house close upon midnight, 
and a certain strangeness in his look and manner which 
had struck him at the time, and which he had spoken about 
to his fellow-servants afterward. 

Suspicion thus aroused, the next step was to pursue the 
suspected man; but Gilbert Sinnlair had been lucky enough 
to get away from England without leaving any trail behind 
him. It had been a particularly busy time on the Liver- 
pool quay that June morning — half a dozen big steamers 
starting for different parts of the globe, commerce at her 
best on the Mersey, and the trade with South America 
thriving. The business-like-looking man, with a single 
portmanteau, had taken his berth and slipped on board the 

Chimborazo " without attracting special notice from any 
one; and for once in a way Scotland Yard was at fault. 

The coroner’s inquest dragged its slow length along. 
No new evidence was elicited to make the case stronger 
against Gilbert Sinclair. The fact of his departure re- 
mained the only damning fact against him. 


186 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


There was also the fact of Melanie Duport^s disappear- 
ance on the morning of the murder, and opinions were 
divided as to which of these two was guilty, or whether 
both had not been concerned in the act. 

The newspapers made much capital out of an event which 
soon became known as the Davenant Mystery, and Con- 
stance Sinclair had the horror of knowing that she was the 
object of a morbid interest in the minds of the nation at 
large. She left Davenant almost immediately after her 
husband, and took up her abode at Marchbrook, with 
Martha Briggs and the little girl for her only companions,, 
until the arrival of Lord Clanyarde from the Continent. 

The inquiry before the coroner ended at last in an open 
verdict. The deceased had been shot by some person or 
persons unknown. 

Davenant was formally taken possession of upon mid- 
summer-day, not by Sir Cyprian Davenant, but by his law- 
yer, who installed some of the old family servants as care- 
takers. Sir Cyprian had left England, a few days before 
James Wyatt^s death, on his long-talked-of African ex- 
pedition. 

The year wore round, and the horror of James Wyatt's 
unexplained death faded out of the national mind, as all 
such horrors do fade when the newspapers leave off writing 
about them. Constance lived her quiet life at Marchbrook 
as she had lived at Davenant, happy with her child, yet 
mindful, with a shuddering pity, of that friendless wan- 
derer doomed to bear the brand of Cain. Christmas came 
and passed, and for nearly a year she had remained in 
ignorance of her husband's fate. Then came a letter, in a 
strange hand, but signed by Gilbert Sinclair: 

‘‘ Deak Constance, — I am down with a malignant 
fever common to this part of the world, and generally fatal. 
Before I die I should like to ask you to forgive me for all 
the pain my jealousy gave you in days gone by, and to tell 
you that I now believe that jealousy to have been causeless. 
It was what the thieves call a ‘ put up ' business, and 
Wyatt was the lago. He set a trap for me, and got snared 
himself m the end. 

‘"I want to tell you something else, which may perhaps 
distress you, but that is no fault of mine. The child you 
are so fond of is not your own. Poor little Christabel was 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


187 


really drowned, and the little girl brought to Davenant 
while^ you were ill, is a child adopted for the purpose of 
bringing about your recovery. This plan was suggested to 
me by your father. He knows all about it. 

‘‘ I hav^e made my will, and sent it to my London law- 
yers. I leave you everything. So, if matters go well in 
the North, you will be a very rich woman. I wasted a good 
deal of money on the Newmarket stable; but, with your 
^uiet life, you will soon recover lost ground. Of course 
you will marry 0. D. Well, I canT help that, I ought 
never to have thrust myself between you and your first 
love. Nothing but misery has come of our marriage. 

“ God bless you, and give you a happier life than you 
would ever have spent with me. 

“ Your dying husband, 

“ Gilbert Sinclair. 

‘‘P.S. — If I go, the man who writes this, Thomas 
Grace, tobacco grower, will send you certificate of death, 
and all necessary evidence. If I live, you shall hear from 
me again. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

CRUEL KINDNESS. 

That letter from her dying husband was a bitter blow 
to Constance Sinclair. There was the keen sense of loss, 
the knowledge that her lovely child had verily sunk beneath 
the German river never to rise again save as a spirit amidst 
the choir of angels. There was the deep humiliation of 
knowing that she had been duped. They had taken ad- 
vantage of her affliction and consoled her with a lie. She 
had been fooled, deceived, and deluded, as a child is de- 
luded for her good. Her soul rose up against this mocking 
of consolation in bitterest anger. Her very thanksgivings 
to Heaven — those outpourings of a mother^s grateful heart 
overflowing with its wealth of joy — had been offered up in 
vain. She had no reason to be thankful. Heaven and 
earth had conspired in ill treating her. God had taken 
away her reason, and man had imposed upon her folly. 
Whom upon earth could she ever trust again, when even 
her father had so deceived her? 

With her husband ^s letter came the certificate of his 


188 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


death. The same post brought her a letter from Gilbert's 
lawyers, to inform her of their receipt of his will, executed 
on his death-bed. 

She was sorry for the wasted life, the lonely death in a 
strange land; and Gilbert Sinclair was mourned with more 
honest tears than are always shed for a husband^s loss, even 
when the journey of wedded life has begun in the rosy light 
of a romantic love. 

After those tears given to the untimely dead, her 
thoughts were full of anger. She could not forgive the 
deception that had been practiced, even though it had been 
done to save her life. 

“ Better a thousand times to have died in that dim 
dream than to awake to such a disappointment as this, 
she said. 

And then she thought of the river in the fair German 
valley, and that agonizing day which she had learned to 
look back upon as no more than a painful and prolonged 
dream. She knew now that it had been no dream, but a 
hideous reality. 

While she sat with Gilbert's letter open before her, 
abandoned to a tearless despair, the little, one’s voice 
sounded in the corridor, and she heard the light swift foot- 
steps which always made her heart thrill. To-day it struck 
her with an actual pain. She rose involuntarily and ran to 
the door, as she had been accustomed to run to meet her 
pet, rejoicing at the child’s approach; but, with her hand 
upon the door, she stopped suddenly. 

‘‘ No, I won’t see her — little impostor — living lie — to 
have stolen my love and my dead child looking down upon 
me from heaven all the while — looking down to see her 
place filled by a stranger — lonely in heaven, perhaps, for 
want of a mother’s love, and seeing her mother’s heart 
given to another.” 

The light-tripping steps came nearer. 

“ Mamma! mamma!” called the glad young voice. 

Constance locked the door. 

“ Go away,” she cried, hoarsely; “ I don’t want you.” 

There was a pause — complete silence — and then a burst 
of sobbing. The strangeness of that tone had chilJed the 
child’s heart. Lips that had hitherto only breathed love, 
to-day spoke with the accents of hate. Instinct told the 
child the greatness of the change. 


WEAVEKS AND WEFT. 


189 


The little feet retreated slowly down the corridor — not so 
light of step this time — the sobs d.ied away in the distance. 

“I will never see her face again/’ cried Constance. 

Some wretched child — perhaps the offspring of sin — base 
at heart as she is fair of face — and so like my lost one — so 
like — so like! No, I will send her away — settle a sum of 
money — provide handsomely for her — poor child, it is not 
her crime — but never see her again. Yet, oh, God! I love 
her. And she is crying now, perhaps. The loving little 
heart will break.” 

She had. been pacing the room distractedl3^ This last 
thought was too much to bear. She ran to the door, un* 
locked it, and went out into the corridor, calling, “ Belle, 
darling Belle, come back. I am waiting for you yet.” 

She went to the little one’s nursery, and found her lying 
with her face buried in the sofa-pillow, sobbing piteously. 
To-day’s harsh tones were her first experience of imkind- 
ness. Constance .threw herself on the sofa, and caught the 
child in her arms, drew the little trembling form to her 
breast, and kissed and cried over it. 

“ My pet, I love you. I shall love you to my dying day,’^ 
she cried, passionately. “ Hearts can not be played with 
like this. Love can not be given and taken away. ” 

The child hugged her, and was comforted, understanding 
the love, if not the words that told it. 

‘‘ Belle hasn’t been naughty, has she, mamma?” she 
asked, with innocent wonder. 

No, pet; but mamma has been very unhappy. 
Mamma has had a sad letter. Oh, here comes Martha,” 
as that devoted nurse entered from the night nursery. 
“ Do you know, Martha, I think Christabel wants change 
of air.' You must take her to Hastings for a little while. ” 

‘‘ Lor’, mum, that would be nice. But you’ll come too, 
of course. You wouldn’t like to be parted from her.” 

“ I don’t know that I could come, quite at first. I 
might come afterward, perhaps. I have some very sad 
business to attend to.” 

Constance told Martha of Mr. Sinclair’s death, but not 
a word of that imposture which had just been revealed to 
her. Martha had been as completely deceived as she had, 
no doubt, Constance argued, for she knew it was not in the 
girl’s honest nature to assist in a deception. The likeness 
to the lost child had deluded them both. 


190 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


‘‘ I suppose all children of the same age and complexion 
are alike/^ thought Constance; and yet I fancied my baby 
was different from all other children.’^ 

She wished to send the child away, in order, if it were 
possible, to cure herself of the habit of loving a child that 
had no claim on her — to love whom was a kind of treason 
against the beloved dead. 

The preparations for the journey were hurried over; 
Martha was delighted to pack and be off. The child was 
pleased to go, but cried at parting from “ mamma. At 
two o’clock in the afternoon the carriage drove Martha and 
her charge to the station, with the steady old Marchbrook 
butler for their escort. He was to take lodgings for them, 
and make all things easy for them, and see them comfort- 
ably settled before he came back to Marchbrook. 

Constance breathed more freely when the child was out 
of the house, and there was no chance of hearing that light 
foostep, that clear, sweet, childish voice. Yet how dreary 
the big old house seemed in its solitude, how gloomy the 
rooms, without that fluttering, changeful soul and all the 
busy life she made around her — the family of dolls — the 
menagerie of woolly animals, all afflicted with the same un- 
natural squeak, an internal noise never heard to issue from 
any animal that ever lived in the realm of zoology. 

“ It would have broken my heart to keep her near me,’’ 
thought Constance, “ and I feel as if it must break my 
heart to lose her.” 

By way of solace, or to sustain her in the indignant pride 
which revolted against this spurious child, she tried to think 
of Christabel in heaven. But her thoughts wandered back 
to the living child, and she found herself wondering 
whether Martha and her charge were at the end of their 
journey, and longing for the telegram that was to announce 
their safe arrival. 

“What folly!” she thought, angrily. “A stranger’s 
child — a creature that is no more to me than any of the 
children at the infant school, and yet I can not tear her 
from my heart. ” 

She sent for Dr. Webb. He was in the plot, doubtless. 
It was at his advice, perhaps, that this heartless deception 
had been practiced upon her. If it were so, she felt tliat 
she must hate him all her life. 

The little village surgeon came briskly enough, expecting 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


191 


to find a mild case of measles, or some other infantile ail- 
ment, in the Marchbrook nursery. What was his astonish- 
ment when he found Constance pacing the long dreary 
drawing-room, pale, with two burning spots on her cheeks, 
eyes bright with fever. 

My dear Mrs. Sinclair, what is the matter?’ ’ 

‘‘Everything,” cried Constance. “^My poor husband 
is dead, and on his death-bed wrote me a letter telling me 
the cruel truth. Your wicked plot has been discovered. 
Yes, wicked; for all lies are wicked. You can not do evil 
that good may come of it. You saved my life, perhaps, 
but what a life! To find that I have lavished my love 
upon an impostor; that when I thanked God on my knees 
for His bounteous mercies, I had received no gracious gifL 
He had shown no pity for my sorrows; but you — you and 
my father had played at Providence, and had pretended to 
perform a miracle for my sake. It was a cruel, infamous 
deception.” 

“ It was designed to save your life, and, what is even 
more precious than life, your reason,” replied Dr. Webb, 
wounded by the harshness of this attack. “ But whatever 
blame may attach to the strategem, you may spare me your 
censure. I had nothing to do with it. The German physi- 
cian, whom your father brought here, was the adviser from 
whom the suggestion came. He and your father carried it 
out between them. I had nothing to do but look on, and 
watch the effect of the shock upon you. That was most 
happy. ” 

“ The German doctor,” said Constance, wonderingly. 
“Yes, I remember him faintly, as if it were a dream — that 
winter night. He made me sing, did he not? His voice 
had a mesmerical effect upon me. I obeyed him involun- 
tarily. His presence seemed to give me comfort, stranger 
though he was. It was very curious. And then he bent 
over me and whispered hope, and from that instant I felt 
happier. And it was all a mockery after all; it was a 
trick. Tell me who and what that child is. Doctor Webb.” 

“ I know nothing of her origin. Lord Clanyarde brought 
her to Davenant. That is all I can tell 3^ou. ” 

“Fool! fool! fool!” cried Constance, with passionate 
self-reproach, “ to take an impostor to m.y heart so blindly, 
to ask no questions, to believe without proof or witness that 
Heaven had performed a miracle for my happiness. What 


192 


WEAYERS AXD WEFT. 


right had I to suj^pose that Providence would care so much 
for mer^’ 

You have great cause to be thankful for the restoration 
of life and reason, Mrs. Sinclair,^ ’said the doctor, reproach- 
fully. 

Not if life is barren and hopeless; not if reason tells 
me that I am childless.” 

‘‘You have learned to love this strange child. Can not 
you take consolation from that affection?” 

“ No; I loved her because I believed she was my own. 
It would be treason against my dead child to love this im- 
postor. ’ ’ 

“And you will turn her out-of-doors, I suppose, and 
send her to the work- house?” 

“ I am not so heartless as that. Her future shall be 

E rovided for, but I shall never see her again. I have sent 
er to Hastings with her nurse, who adores her.” 

“ That’s fortunate, since she is to be deprived of every- 
body else’s affection.” 

There was a spice of acidity in the doctor’s tone. He 
had attended the child in various small illnesses, had met 
her almost daily riding her tiny Shetland pony in the lanes, 
and entertained a warm regard for the pretty little winning 
creature, who used to purse up her lips into a rosebud for 
him to kiss, and had evidently not the least idea that he was 
old and ugly. 

“ Since you can tell me nothing, I shall send for my 
father,” said Constance; “ he liiust know to whom the 
child belongs.” 

“ I should imagine so,” replied the doctor, glad to feel 
himself absolved of all blame. 

It was a painful position, certainly, he thought. He had 
anticipated this difficulty from the beginning of things. 
He was very glad to take his leave of his patient, after 
hazarding a platitude or two by way of consolation. 

Lord Clanyarde was in Paris enjoying the gayeties of the 
cheerful season before Lent, and making himself extremely 
comfortable in his bachelor room at the Hotel Bristol. He 
had married all his daughters advantageously, and buried 
his wife, and felt that his mission had been accomplished, 
and that he was free to make his pathway to the grave as 
pleasant as he could. From January to March he found 
his aged steps traveled easiest over the asphalt of Paris, and 


WEAVEES AND WEFT. 


193 


as poor Constance was happy with her adopted child, he 
felt no scruples against leaving her to enjoy life in her own 
quiet way. 

Mrs. Sinclair's telegram informing him of her husband ^s 
death, and entreating him to go to Marchbrook, disturbed 
the placidity of his temper. 

“ Poor Sinclair he muttered, with more fretfulness 
than regret. Pity he couldn^t have died at a more con- 
venient time. I hate crossing the Channel in an equinoctial 
gale. And what good can I do at Marchbrook? However, 
I suppose I must go. Women are so helpless. She never 
cared much for him, poor child, and there^’s Davenant still 
unmarried and devoted to her. An excellent match, too, 
since he came into old Gryffin^s money. Providence orders 
all things for the best. I hope I shall have a fine night for 
crossing. 

He was with Constance early on the following day, hav- 
ing lost no time in obeying her summons, but he was un- 
prepared for the accusation she brought against him. 

“ Upon my life, Constance, I was only a passive instru- 
ment in the whole affair, just like little Webb. It was put 
to me that this thing must be done to save your life, and 
I consented. 

‘‘ You let a stranger take my destiny into his hands?^^ 
cried Constance, indignantly. 

“ He was not a stranger. He loved you dearly — was as 
anxious for your welfare as even I, your father.^’ 

“ The German physician, the white-haired old man who 
told me to hope? Why, he had never seen me before in 
his life.^^ 

“ The man who told you to hope, who persuaded me to 
agree to the introduction of a spurious child, was no Ger- 
man doctor. He was neither old nor white-haired, and he 
had loved you devotedly for 3"ears. He heard you were 
dying of a broken heart, and came to you in disguise in 
order to see if love could devise some means of saving you. 
The German doctor was Cyprian Davenant. 

This was another blow for Constance. The man whom 
she had believed in as the soul of honor was the originator 
of the scheme she had denounced. as wicked and cruel, and 


yet she could find no words of blame for him. She remem- 
bered the gentle voice that had penetrated her ear and mind 
through the. thick mists of madness, remembered the tones 


194 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


that had touched her with a wondering sense of something 
familiar and dear. He had come to her in her apathy and 
despair, and from the moment of his coming her life had 
brightened and grown happy. It was but a delusive happi- 
ness, a false peace; and now she must go back to the old 
agony of desolation and incurable regret. 

“ You can at least tell me who and what that child is, 
papa,^^ she said, after a long pause. 

“ Indeed, my love, I know nothing, except that Dave- 
nant told me she belonged to decently born people, and 
would never be claimed % any one. And the poor little 
thing looked so thoroughly clean and respectable — of course 
at that age one can hardly tell — the features are so un- 
developed — the nose more like a morsel of putty than any- 
thing human — but I really did think that the child had a 
thorough-bred look; and I am sure when I saw her last 
Christmas she looked as complete a lady as ever came out 
of our Marchbrook nursery. 

“ She is a lovely child, said Constance, ‘‘and I have 
loved her passionately.^^ 

“Then, my dearest girl, why not go on loving her?^^ 
pleaded Lord Clanyarde. “ Call her your adopted child, 
if you like, and keep her about you as your pet and com- 
panion till you are married again, and have children of your 
own. You can then relegate her to her natural position, 
and by and by get her respectably married, or portion her 
off in some way. 

“ Ho,^^ said Constance, resolutely, “ I will never see her 
again. 

And all the while she was longing to take the afternoon 
train to Hastings and rejoin her darling. 

After this there was no more for Constance Sinclair to do 
but to submit to fate, and consider herself once more a 
childless mother. Sir Cyprian was away, no one knew 
where, and even had he been in England Constance felt 
that there would be little use in knowing more than she 
knew already. The knowledge of the strange child^s parent- 
age could be but of the smallest importance to her, since 
she meant to banish the little one from her heart and home. 

Lord Clanyarde and the lawyers did all that was neces- 
sary to secure Mrs. Sinclair's position as inheritor of her 
husband's estates. The Newmarket' stables and stud were 
sold, and realized a considerable sum, as the training stable 


WEAVERS AND WEET. 


195 


was supposed to be the most perfect establishment of its 
kind— built on hygienic principles, with all modern im- 
provements — and was warmly competed for by numerous 
foolish young noblemen and gentlemen who were just set- 
ting out on that broad road along which Gilbert’ Sinclair 
had traveled at so swift a rate. Things in the North had 
been gradually improving — the men were growing wiser, 
and arbitration between master and men was taking the 
place of trade-union tyranny. 

Constance Sinclair found herself in a fair way to become 
a very rich woman, caring about as much for the money her 
husband had left her as for the withered leaves that fell 
from the Marchbrook elms in the dull, hopeless autumn 
days. What was the use of wealth to a childless widow, 
who could have been content to live in a lodging of three 
rooms, with one faithful servant. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

AFTER MANY DAYS. 

A COMMON specific for a broken heart when the patient 
happens to be a person of handsome fortune — for your 
pauper, hard work is your only cure — is foreign travel. 
Lord Clanyarde, who hated Marchbrook, now suggested 
this remedy to his daughter. He felt that it was his duty 
to afford her the benefit of his protection and society during 
the first period of her widowhood; audit struck him that it 
would be more agreeable for both of them to lead a no- 
madic life than to sit opposite each other on the family 
hearth and brood upon the sorrows of this life or read the 
family Bible. 

‘‘ It would be quite the right season for Rome, love, if 
we were to start atonce,^^ said Lord Clanyarde, soothingly. 

Constance yielded to her father^s suggestion with a grace- 
ful submission that charmed him. She cared very little 
whither she went. The little girl was still at Hastings with 
honest Martha. She cried sometimes for mamma, but was 
happy, upon the whole, Martha wrote; wondering very 
much why she and her charge remained so long away. 
Martha knew nothing of the change that had taken place 
in her darling^s position. 

‘‘ Very well, clear,^'’ said Lord Clanyarde. ‘‘ You have 


196 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


only to get your boxes packed; and, by the way, you had 
better write to your banker for circular notes. Five hun- 
dred will do to start with. 

Father and daughter went to Italy, and Constance tried 
to find comfort in those classic scenes which are peopled 
with august shadows; but her heart was tortured by separa- 
tion from the child, and it was only a resolute* pride which 
withheld her from owning the truth — that the little one she 
had believed her own was as dear to her as the baby she 
had lost. 

Lord Olanyarde and his daughter were driving on the 
Corso one sunny afternoon in the Easter week, when the 
gentleman’s attention was attracted by a lady who drove a 
phaeton with a pair of cobs caparisoned in a fantastical 
fashion, with silver bells on their harness. The lady was 
past her first youth, but was still remarkably handsome, 
and was dressed with an artistic sense of color and a daring 
disregard of the fashion of the day — dressed, in a word, to 
look like an old picture, and not like a modern fashion plate. 

“ Who can she be?” exclaimed Lord Olanyarde.. “ Her 
face seems familiar to me, yet I haven’t the faintest idea 
where I’ve seen her.” 

“ A few yards further on he encountered an acquaintance 
of the London clubs, and pulled up his horses on purpose 
to interrogate him about the unknown in the Spanish hat. 

Don’t you know her?” asked Captain Flitter, with a 
surprised air. . ‘‘Yes, she’s handsome, but passee; sur le 
retour 

“ Who is she?” repeated Lord Qlanyarde. 

Captain Flitter looked curiously at Mrs. Sinclair before 
he answered. 

“Her name is Walsingham — widow of a Colonel 
Walsingham — colonel in the Spanish contingent — rather a 
bad egg; of course I mean the gentleman.” 

A light dawned on Lord Clanyarde’s memory. Yes, 
this was the Mrs. Walsingham whom people had talked 
about years ago, before Sinclair’s marriage, and it was Sin- 
clair’s money she was spending now, in all probability, on 
that fantastical turn-out with its jingling bells. Lord 
Clanyarde felt himself personally aggrieved by the lady, 
and yet he thought he would like to see more of her. 

“ Does she stay long in Rome?” he asked the club 
lounger. ’ 


TTEAVEKS AND WEET. 


197 


‘‘ She never stays long anywhere, I believe; very erratic; 
likes artists and musical people, and that sort of thing; 
has reception every Saturday evening. I always go. One 
meets people one doesn^t see elsewhere — not the regulation 
tread-mill, you know.^^ 

Lord Clanyarde asked no more. He would be sure to 
meet Flitter at one of The artists^ rooms, and could ask him 
as many questions about Mrs. Walsingham as he liked. 

The two men met that very evening, and the result of 
their conversation was Lord Olanyarde^s presentation to 
Mrs. Walsingham at her Saturday reception. 

She was very gracious to him, and made room for him 
on the ottoman where she was seated, the center of a circle 
of enthusiastic Americans, who thought her the nicest 
Englishwoman they had ever met. 

“ Who was that lady in deep mourning you were driving 
with yesterday?^ ^ Mrs. Walsingham asked Lord Clanyarde 
presently. 

“ My youngest daughter, Mrs. Sinclair. You knew her 
husband, I think, some years ago. He is lately dead.'^^ 
Yes, I saw his death in the ‘ Times,^ in that dismal 
column where we shall all appear in due course, Isuppose.^^ 

‘‘ Yes, he died in South America. You heard the story, 
I suppose. A most unfortunate business — his confidential 
solicitor shot in Sinclair's own garden by a little French 
girl he had been foolish enough to get entangled with. The 
jealous little viper contrived to give the police the slip, and 
Sinclair saw himself in danger of being brought unpleasantly 
into the business, so he wisely left the country.'’^ 

‘‘You believe that it was Melanie Duport who shot Mr. 
Wyatt?’ Mrs. Walsingham exclaimed, eagerly. 

“ What, you remember the girl’s name? Yes, there can 
hardly be a doubt as to her guilt. Who else had any 
motive for killing him? The creature’s letter luring him 
to the spot was found in the park, and she disappeared on 
the morning of the murder. Those two facts are convinc- 
ing, I should think,” concluded Lord Clanyarde, somewhat 
warmly. 

“Yes, she was a wicked creature,” said Mrs. Walsing- 
ham, thoughtfully; “ she had a natural bent toward evil ” 

“You speak as if you had known her.” 

Mrs. Walsingham looked confused. 

“ I read the account of that dreadful business in the 


198 


WEAVERS AlfD WEFT. 


newspapers/^ she said. “ I hope Mrs. Sinclair has quite 
recovered from the shock such an awful event must have 
caused her."’^ 

“ Well, yes; I think she has recovered from that. Her 
husband^s death following so quickly was of course a blow, 
and since then she has had another trouble to bear. 

“ Indeed! I am sorry,^^ said Mrs. Walsingham, with a 
thoughtful look. 

“ Yes; we did all for the best. She was dangerously ill, 
you know, about a year and a half ago, and we — well, it 
was foolish, perhaps, though the plan succeeded for the 
moment — we made her believe that her little girl had been 
saved from drowning at Schoenesthal, in the Black Forest. 
You may have heard of the circumstance.^^ 

“ Yes, yes.'’^ ' 

“ It was quite wonderful. She received the strange child 
we introduced to her with delight — never doubted its 
identity with her own baby — and all went on well till poor 
Sinclair's death; but on his death-bed he wrote her a letter 
telling her — 

“That the child was not her own!^’ exclaimed Mrs. 
Walsingham. “ That must have hit her hard. ” 

“ It did, poor girl. She has not yet recovered the blow, 
and I fear never will. What I most dread is her sinking 
back into the state in which she was the winter before 
last.^^ 

“ Where is Sir Cyprian Davenant?^^ asked Mrs. Walsing- 
ham, somewhat irrelevantly. 

“At the other end of the world, I suppose. I believe 
he started for Africa last autumn. ” 

“ Was there not some kind of early attachment between 
him and Mrs. Sinclair.^ Pardon me for asking such a 
question. 

“ Yes; I believe Davenant would have proposed for 
Constance if his circumstances had permitted him to hope 
for my consent.^' 

“ Poor fellow! And he carried his broken heart to 
Africa, and came back to find a fortune waiting for him, 
and your daughter married. Do you not think, if he were 
to return now, Mrs. Sinclair might be consoled for the loss 
of her child by reunion with the lover of her girlhoodr^^ 

“ I doubt if anything would reconcile her to the loss of 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


199 


the little girl. Her affection, for that child was an infatua- 
tion. 

A pair of picturesque Italians began a duet by Verdi, 
and the conversation between Mrs. Walsingham and Lord 
Clanyarde went no further. He did not make any offer of 
bringing Constance to the lady^s receptions; for the mem- 
ory of that old alliance between Mrs. Walsingham and Gil- 
bert Sinclair hung like a cloud over her reputation. No 
one had any specific charge to bring against her, but it was 
remembered that Sinclair had been her devoted slave for a 
long time, and had ended his slavery by marrying some- 
body else. 

As the weeks went round Constance showed no improve- 
ment in health or spirits. Pride was making a soriy strug- 
gle in that broken heart. She would not go back to Eng- 
land and the spurious Christabel, though her heart yearned 
for that guiltless impostor. She would not suffer another 
woman ^s child to hold the place of her lost darling; no, 
not even though that strange child had made itself dearer 
to her than life. 

Mrs. Sinclair's doctor informed Lord Clanyarde that 
Rome was getting too warm for his patient, whereupon 
that anxious parent was fain to tear himself away from the 
pleasures of tlie seven hilled city and those delightful even- 
ings at Mrs. Walsingham '’s. 

“ Our medical man threatens me with typhoid fever and 
all manner of horrors if I keep my daughter here any 
longer,^ ^ he said, “so we start for the Engadine almost 
immediately. You will not stay much longer in Rome, I 
suppose 

donH know,^^ answered Mrs. Walsingham, carelessly; 
“ the place suits me better than any other. I am tired to 
death of London and Paris. There is some pleasure in life 
here; and I should like to be buried in the cemetery where 
Keats lies. 

Yes, it^s a nice place to be buried in, if we must be 
buried at all; but thaPs rather a gloomy consideration. I 
should strongly advise you to spend the^ summer in a 
healthier climate, and leave the burial question to chance.’^ 

“ Oh> I dare say 1 shall soon get tired of Rome. I 
always get tired of places before I have been very long in 
theni: and if the artists go away, I shall go too.""' 

Lord Clanyarde and his daughter left at the end of the 


200 


WEAVERS A^TD WEFT. 


week. There were fever cases talked of already, and all 
the American tourists had fled. Lord Olanyarde felt he 
was not getting away an hour too soon. They dawdled 
about among Swiss mountains, living a life of rustic sim- 
plicity that was wondrously beneficial to Constance, but 
somewhat painful to Lord Olanyarde. At the beginning 
of July they had established themselves at a little lonely 
village in the shadow of white, solemn mountains, and here 
Constance felt as if she had passed beyond the region of 
actual life into a state of repose, a kind 'of painless purga- 
tory. She had done with the world and worldly interests 
and affections. Even the little stranger^s heart must have 
been weaned from her by this time. 

Lord Olanyarde saw the gradual decay of his daughter's 
strength, and trembled for the issue. She had grown dearer 
to him in this time of close companionship than she had 
ever been since the far-off days when she was little Connie, 
the youngest and loveliest of his daughters. He told him- 
self that unless something occurred to rouse her from this 
dull apathy, this placid calm which looked like the forerun- 
ner of death's frozen stillness, there was every reason for 
fear, and but little ground for hope. 

Lord Clanyarde prayed more earnestly than he had ever 
done before in his self-indulgent life, and it seemed to him 
that Providence heard his cry for help. 

One morning there came a letter from Kome which 
startled father and daughter alike. It was from Mrs. 
Walsingham, written in a. tremulous hand, and addressed 
to Lord Clanyarde. 

They tell me I am dying, and the near approach of 
death has melted the ice about my heart. I have been a 
very wicked woman, and now conscience urges me to make 
you what poor reparation I can for the most cruel and 
treacherous revenge — not upon the man who wronged me, 
but upon the innocent girl for whose sake I was deserted. 

“ I have deeply injured your daughter. Lord Clanyarde, 
and I meant to carry the secret of that wrong to the grave 
— to leave her desolate and childless to the end. But the 
long lonely nights, the pain and weariness of decay, the 
dreary seclusion from the dreary outer world — these have 
done their work. Conscience, which had been deadened by 
anger and revenge, slowly awakened, and there came a 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


201 


longing for atonement. I can never undo what I have 
done. I can never give your daTighter back the years that 
have been darkened by sorrow — her wasted tears, her vain 
regrets. But I may do something. Let her come to me — 
let her stand beside my death- bed, and I will whisper the 
story of my crime into her ear. I will not write it. She 
must come quickly if she wishes to hear what I have to tell, 
for death stares me in the face, and this letter may be long 
reaching you. Every day drifts me further down the dark 
river. How swiftly it rushes sometimes in the dreary 
night-watches! I can fancy I hear the ripple of the tide 
and the hollow moan of the great ocean that lies before me 
— the unknown sea of death and eternity. 

Here came a broken sentence, which Lord Clanyarde 
could not decipher, and it seemed to him that the vvriter^s 
mind had wandered toward the close of the letter. There 
was no signature, but he knew the handwriting, and Mrs. 
Walsingham^s address was engraved at the top. 

The letter had been more than a week on the road, and 
was readdressed from the hotel where Lord Clanyarde and 
his daughter had stayed at the beginning of their tour. 

It^’s a curious business, said Lord Clanyarde, doubt- 
fully, after he had given Constance the letter. I believe 
her mind is affected, poor soul; and I really donT think 
• you ought to go. Who can tell what she may say in her 
ravings, and not a vestige of truth in it, perhaps.'^ 

He thought Mrs. Walsingham^s death-bed confession 
might concern her relations with Gilbert Sinclair, and that 
it would be better for Constance to hear nothing the un- 
happy lady could tell. 

“ This letter bears the stamp of truth,^^ said Constance, 
firmly. “ I shall go, papa. Pray get a carriage, and let 
us start as quickly as possible. 

“ But, my love, consider the unhealthiness of Home at 
this time of year. We might as well go and live in a fever 
hospital. The Pontine Marshes, you know, steaming with 
malaria. We should be digging our own graves. 

“ You need not go there unless you like, papa, but I 
shall not lose an hour. She Has something to confess — 
some wrong done me — something about Christabel, per- 
haps,’^ cried Constance. 

He saw that the only wise course was ta yield to his 


202 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


daughter's wishes, and lost no time in making arrange- 
ments for the journey back to Eome. 

They entered Rome in the summer sunset, the city look- 
ing beautiful as a dream. The atmosphere was cool and 
balmy, but Lord Olanyarde looked with a shudder at the 
silvery mists floating over the valleys, and fancied he saw 
the malaria flend grinning at him behind that diaphanous 
veil. Constance thought of nothing but the purpose for 
which she had come. 

“ Tell the man to drive straight to Mrs. Walsingham^s, 
papa,^"" she said, eagerly. 

He gave the direction to the driver, and the man pulled 
up his tired horses before one of the stately palaces of the 
past. 

An Italian man-servant admitted them to an anteroom 
lavishly decorated with pictures and bric-a-brac — a room in 
which Lord Olanyarde had eaten Neapolitan ices or sipped 
coffee on those Saturday evenings which Mrs. Walsingham 
had made so agreeable to him. He had never seen the 
room empty before to-night, and it had a singularly deso- 
late look to his fancy in the flickering light of a pair of wax 
candle^ that had burned down to the sockets of the Pom- 
peian bronze candlesticks on the velvet-draped mantel- 
piece. 

“ How is your mistress?” Lord Olanyarde asked, eager- 
ly. The Italian shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Alas, excellency, it goes always the same. She still 
exists, that is all.” 

“Tell her Mrs. Sinclair has come from Switzerland in 
the hope of seeing her.^^ 

The Italian summoned Mrs. Walsingham's maid, who 
requested Constance to come at once to the sick-room. 
She was expected. But she must prepare herself to be 
shocked by Mrs. Walsingham ^s appearance. Her end 
seemed near. 

“You had better go to your hotel, papa,” said Con- 
stance. “ I may have to stay here a long time. You can 
come back for me by and by. ” 

On reflection Lord Clanyarde considered this the best 
arrangement. He really wanted his dinner. Indeed, he 
had never yet found any crisis in life so solemn as to ob- 
literate that want. 

The servant led the way through a suite of reception- 


WEAVERS AND WEPT. 


203 


rooms to a tall door at the end of a spacious saloon. This 
opened into Mrs. Walsinghani^s bedroom, which was the 
last room on this side of the house: a noble chamber, with 
windows looking two ways — one toward the hills, the other 
over the stately roofs and temples of the city. Both win- 
dows were wide open, and there was no light in the room 
save the rosy glow of sunset. The bed was in an alcove, 
voluminously draped with amber damask and Eoman lace. 
Mrs. Walsingham was in a sitting position, propped up 
with pillows, facing the sun-glow beyond the purple hills. 

There was a second door opening on to the staircase, and 
as Constance entered, some one — a man — left the room by 
this door. She supposed that this person must be one of 
Mrs. Walsingham '’s medical attendants. The doctors were 
hovering about her, no doubt, in these last hours. 

‘‘You have come/ ^gasped the dying woman, “thank 
God! You can go, Morris,^ ^ to the maid; “ I will ring if 
I want you. Come here, Mrs. Sinclair. Sit down by my 
side. There is no time to lose. My breath fails me very 
often. You must excuse — be patient. 

“ Pray do not distress yourself,'’^ said Constance, seating 
herself in the chair beside the bed; “ I can stay as long as 
you like. 

“ How gently you speak to me! but you don^t know. 
You will look at me differently presently — not with those 
compassionate eyes. I am an awful spectacle, am I not? — 
living death. Would you believe that I was once a beauty? 
Sant painted my portrait when we were both at our best — 
with a bitter little laugh. 

“ I have not lost an hour in coming to you. If you have 
done me a wrong that you can by any means atone for, 
pray do not lose time. 

“ Death is waiting at my door. Yes, I must be quick. 
But it is so horrible to talk of it, such mean, low treachery. 
Not a great revenge; a pitiful, paltry act of spitefulness. 
Oh, if you knew how I loved Gilbert Sinclair, how firmly I 
believed in his love — yes, and he was fond of me, until the 
luckless day you crossed his path and stole his heart from 
me. ^ ^ 

“ I never knew — faltered Constance. 

“ No, you wronged me ignorantly; but that did not 
make my loss lighter to hear. I hated you for it. Yes, I 
measured my hatred for you by my love for him. Life was 


204 


WEAVERS AND WEFT. 


intolerable to me without him, and one day I vowed that I 
would make your life intolerable to you. I was told that 
you were making an idol of your child, that your happiness 
was bound up in that baby^s existence, and I resolved that 
the child should be taken from you — 

“ Wretch!^' cried Constance, starting up in sudden hor- 
ror. “ You were there — at Schoenesthal — you pushed her 
down the slope — it was not an accident — 

‘‘ No, no. I was not quite so bad as that — not capable 
of taking that sweet young life. To take her from you, 
that was enough. To make your days miserable — to make 
you drink the cup of tears, as I had done — because of you. 
That was my end and aim. I found a willing tool in your 
French nurse-maid, a skillful coadjutor in James Wyatt. 
Everything was well planned. The girl had learned to 
swim, the year before, at Ostend, and was not afraid to 
plunge into the river when she saw some one coming. This 
gave a look of reality to the business. I met Melanie Du- 
port at the ruins that September morning, and took your 
baby from her; I carried her away in my own arms to the 
place where a carriage was waiting for me, and drove 
straight to Baden, and from Baden traveled as fast as I 
could to Brussels, keeping the baby in my own charge all 
the while. 

‘‘ She was not drowned, then. Thank God! thank 
God!^^ cried Constance, sinking on her knees beside the 
bed, and lifting up her heart in praise and thanksgiving. 
Of Mrs. Walsingham^s guilt — of the vain sorrow she had 
endured — she hardly thought in this moment of delight. 

“ Where is she, my darling, my angel r What have you 
done with her? Where have you hidden her all this time?^^ 
A wan smile crept over the ashen face of the dying sin- 
ner. 

“We are strange creatures, we women — mysteries even 
to ourselves, she said. “ I took your child away from 
you, and hearing you were dying broken-hearted, gaVe her 
back to you. Your old lover pleaded strongly. I gave her 
into Sir Cyprian Davenant^s keeping. I know no more. 

“ Then I was not deceived. My Christabel— it was my 
Christabel they brought back to me. The instinct of a 
mother^s heart was not a delusion.’^ 

. “ Can you pity — pardon? faltered Mrs. AValsingham. 

“ Yes, I forgive you for all— for months of blank, hope- 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


205 


less grief — all — because of what you have told me to-night. 
If you had taken this secret to the grave — if I had never 
known — I should have gone on steeling my heart against 
my darling; I should have thrust her from me, left her 
motherless in this cruel world, and thought that I was 
doing my duty. Yes, I forgive. You have wronged me 
cruelly; and it was heartless, treacherous, abominable, 
what you did at Schoenesthal; but I forgive you all for the 
sake of this blessed moment. May God pardon you, as I 
do!’^ 

“You are an angel, sighed Mrs. AValsingham, stretch- 
ing out a feeble hand, which Constance pressed tenderly in 
both her own. Death is a great healer of by-gone wrongs. 
“And will you forgive the friend who brought you your 
own child, believing that he was bringing upon you a 
stranger, and who experimentalized with your maternal 
love in the hope of winning you from the grave?^^ 

“ You mean Sir Cyprian Davenant?^^ said Constance. 

“Yes.^^ 

“ I felt angry with him when my father told me what he 
had done; but I am sure all he did was done out of affec- 
tion for an old friend. I have nothing to forgive. 

“ I am glad to hear you say that. Sir Cyprian has re- 
turned from Africa after a successful expedition. He is in 
Rome.'’^ 

Constance’s pale cheek grew a shade paler. 

“ He is in Rome, and has paid me many visits in this 
sick-room. He has talked to me of your gentleness — your 
divine compassion. But for that I do not think I should 
ever have had the courage to send for you — ” 

“ I thank him with all my heart, ” exclaimed Constance. 

“ Let your lips thank hina too,” said Mrs. Walsingham, 
touching the spring bell on the little table by her side. 

She struck the bell three times, and at the third chime 
the door opened and Cyprian Davenant came in. It was 
he who had withdrawn quietly at Mrs. Sinclair’s entrance, 
and whom she had mistaken for the doctor. 

“ She has forgiven all,” said Mrs. Walsingham. “ You 
were right when you called her an angel. And now let me 
do one good thing on my death-bed. Let me be sure that 
the rest of her life will be bright and happy, that there will 
be a strong arm and a true heart between her and sorrow. 


206 


WEAVERS AKD WEFT. 


It will help to lift the burden from my conscience if I can 
be sure of that/^ 

Constance spoke not a word. She stood before her first 
lover blushing like a school-girl. She dared not lift her 
eyes to his face. 

Happily there was little need of words. 

Cyprian put his arm round the slender figure^ in its dis- 
mal black dress, and drew the love of years to his breast. 

God has been very good to us, my darling, he said. 
‘‘ May He never part us any more! I think He meant us 
to live and die together. 

Constance did not question this assertion. Her heart 
mutely echoed her lover^s words. 

In the early spring of the following year Davenant 
awoke like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, and the com- 
fortable old servants, who had grown fat and sleek during 
their period of comparative idleness, rejoiced and made 
merry at the coming home of their master. They had 
known him from his boyhood, and to them this raising up 
of the old family to more than its former prosperity was 
like a personal elevation. Even the neighboring villages 
had their share in the gladness, and there were more bon- 
fires and triumphal arches between the railway station and 
the park gates on the evening of Sir Cyprian^s return with 
his beautiful wife than had ever had been seen before by 
the oldest inhabitant. 

Baby Christabel was waiting to receive them on the 
threshold of the old oak-paneled hall; and Martha Briggs, 
resplendent in a new silk gown, declared that this was the 
happiest day of her life — an assertion which James Gibson, 
the gamekeeper, resented as a personal affront. 

“ Bar one, Patty,^'’ he remonstrated. “ I should think 
your own wedding-day ought to be still happier. 

“ No, it won’t, cried Slartha, decidedly; “ and I think 
you ought to know, Jim, that I never would have given my 
consent to get married if my mistress hadn’t — ” 

“ Set you the example,” cried James, with a guffaw. 
“ And a very good example it is, too. Sir Cyprian has 
promised me the new lodge at the south gate — five rooms 
and a scullery. That’s the missus’s doing. I’ll be bound.” 


THE EHD. 


A DY7:KTTSEMEl<rTS. 


From NEW YORK SUN, Dec. IS, 1886. 

Eight years ago Mr, James Pyle, a manufacturer of this city, began to 
make a powder for use in washing dirty clothing. He had discovered a 
chemical compound that would eradicate dirt without injuring the fabric that 
was dirty. More than that, it would remove blood-stains from butchers 
clothing, ink from a printer’s towel, and when applied to the head proved an 
unequaled compound for a shampooing lotion. Experirnents show^ that as 
a disinfecting detergent it was unequaled for use in bath-tubs and in hospitals 
and asylums. More than that, when tried on jewelry it was found to clean 
precious metals perfectly. There were plenty of soaps in the market, but 
nothing at all like this. Naturally, there was some difficulty in finding a mar- 
ket for a novel compound like this, and no great quantity was sold the first 
year. It w'as kept before the public, however, and sold on its merits. The 
growth of the sale is one of the wonders of the trade of New York. During 
the past year nearly 15,000.000 packages of this compound, now familiarly 
known the country over as Pearline, were sold, and the business demands the 
attention of hosts of employees and the use of a big stack of brick buildings 
that form one of the landmarks in Greenwich Street. 

“ It is not the quantity sold that alone indicates the value of the goods,” a 
grocer said yesterday. ” Pyle originated a new idea, but in the short time it 
has been before the public more than one hundred imitations have been 
brought out, many of them by men of great wealth and good standing in the 
community. Men do not imitate in that way a worthless article.” 


aLUTEN SUPPOSITOEXES 

cure: CONSTIPAl'IOiV AND PII.RS. 

60 Cents by Mail. Circulars Free. 

HEALTH FOOD CO., 

4t]i ATenue and lOtll St., N. IT. 

WORKS BY H. RIDER HAGGARD 

CONTAINED IN THE SEASIDE LIBRABY (POCKET EDITION) t 


NO. PRICE. 

432 THE WITCH’S HEAD 20c. 

753 KING SOLOMON’S MINES 20c. 

910 SHE: A HIS'l'ORY OF ADVENTURE 20c. 


For sale by all newsdealers, or sent to any address, postage prepaid, ov? 
receipt of the price, 20 cents each. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing House* 

(P. O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


WHAT IS SAPOLIO? 

equal for all cleaning purposes except the laundry, 
What 


It is a solid, 
handsome cake 
of scouring soap, 
w li i c h has no 
_ To use it is to value it. 

will Sapolio do? Why, it will clean paint, make oil-cloths bright, and 
give the floors, tables and shelves a new appearance. 

It will take the grease off the dishes and off the pots and pans. 

You can scour the knives and forks with it, and make the tin thin^ shino 
brightly. The wash-basin, the bath-tub. even the greasy kitchen sink, will 
be as clean as anew pin if you use SAPOLIO* One cake will prove all 
we say. Be a clever little housekeeper and try it. 

BEWARE OF IMITATIONS. 


NEW TABERNACLE SERMONS 

BY 

pT. Dewitt talmjige, d.d. 


Handsomely Bound in Clotb. 12mo. Price $1.00. 


The latest of Dr. Talmage’s sermons have not yet been pre- 
sented in book form. They have appeared weekly in The New 
York Fireside Companion, and are now 

PaWished for the First Time in Booh Form, 

THE PRICE OF WHICH IS WITHIN THE REACH OP ALD^ 

Eacli Tolne Will Goitaiii TMrt; Senas, 

PRINTED IN 

CLEAR, BOLD, HANDSOME TYPE, 

AND WILL. MAKE 

AN ELEGANT AND ACCEPTABLE HOLIDAY GIFT, 

The above will be sent postpaid on receipt of price, $1.00. 
Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 


P. O. Box 8751. 


17 to ‘.J7 Vande water Street, New York, 


munro’s publications. 


Tie Seaside Library-Pocket Edition. 


Persons who wish to purchase the following works In complete and un 
abridged form are cautioned to order and see that they get The Seaside 
Library, Pocket Edition, as works published in other Lniraries are fre- 
<}uentlv abridged and incomplete. Every number of The Seaside Library 
uncnanged’ and unabridged. 

Newsdealers wishing Catalogues of The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, 
bearing iheir imprint, will be supplied on sending their names, addresses 
and number required. 

The works* in The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, are printed from 
larger tj'pe and on better paper than any other series published. 

The following works are for sale by all newsdealers, or wdll be sent to 
any address, postage free, on receipt of price, by the publisher. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO* IRunro’s Publishing House* 

P. O. Box 8761. 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, N. Y. 

[When ordering by mail please order by number8,\ 


LIST OF AUTHORS. 


Works by the anthor of “ Addie*s 
Husband.” 

388 Addie’s Husband ; or, Through 


Clouds to Sunshine 10 

604 My Poor Wife 10 


Dower*” 

246 A Fatal Dower 10 

872 Phyllis’ Probation 10 

461 His Wedded Wife 20 

829 The Actor’s Ward 30 


797 Look Before You Leap 

805 The Freres. 1st half 

805 The Freres. 2d half 

806 Her Dearest Foe. 1st half 

^6 Her Dearest Foe. 2d half..... 

814 The Heritage of Langdale 

815 Ralph Wilton’s Weird 

Alison’s Works* 

194 “ So Near, and Yet So Farl”. .. 

278 For Life and Love 

481 The House That Jack Built.... 


Works by the author of “ A Great 
Mistake*** 

244 A Great Mistake.*... 20 

688 Cherry.... 10 

Works by the author of “A 
Woman’s LoTe-Story.” 

322 A Woman’s Love-Story 10 

677 Griselda. 20 

Mrs. Alexander*s Works* 

5 The Admiral’s Ward. 20 

17 The Wooing O’t 20 

62 The Executor 20 

189 Valerie’s Fate 10 

229 Maid, Wife, or Widow? 10 

236 Which Shall it Be? 20 

839 Mrs. Vereker’s Courier Maid. . . 10 

490 A Second Life ... 20 

564 At Bay 10 

Va Beaton’s Bargain. 20 


F. Anstey’s Works* 

59 Vice Versa 

225 The Giant’s Robe 

503 The Tinted Venus. A Farcical 

Romance 

819 A Fallen Idol 

R. M* Ballantyne’s Works. 

89 The Red Eric 

95 The Fire Brigade..... 

96 Erling the Bold 

773 Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood 

Trader 

S. Baring-Gould’s Works. 

787 Court Royal 

878 Little Tu’penny 

Basil’s Works* 

344 “ The Wearing of the Green 

547 A Coquette’s Conquest 

685 A Drawn Gam® 




a 


THE SEASroE LIBRARY. 


Anne Beale’s Works. 

J88 Idonea 20 

99 The Fisher Village 10 

Walter Besant’s Works. 

97 All in a Garden Fair 20 

‘ 137 Uncle Jack 10 

140 A Glorious Fortune 10 

M6 Love Finds the Way, and Other 

Stories. By Besant and Rice 10 

^0 Dorothy Forster 20 

824 In Luck at Last ' 10 

541 Uncle Jack 10 

151 “ Self or Bearer ” 10 

‘82 Children of Gibeon 20 

m. Betham-£d wards’s Works. 

ira Love and Mirage; or, The Wait- 
ing on an Island 10 

It rg The Flower of Doom, and Other 

Stories 10 

M)4 Doctor Jacob, 20 

William Black’s Works. 

I Yolande 20 

18 Shandon Bells 20 

II Sunrise : A Story of These 

Times 20 

'.33 A Princess of Thule 20 

39 In Silk Attire 20 

44 Macleod of Dare 20 

49 That Beautiful Wretch 20 

50 The Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton 20 

70 White Wings: A Yachting Ro- 
mance 10 

78 Madcap Violet 20 

81 A Daughter of Heth 20 

324 Three Feathers 20 

3 25 The Monarch of Mincing Lane . 20 

326 Kilmeny 20 

138 Green Pastures and Piccadilly. 20 
^ Judith Shakespeare : Her Love 

Affairs and Other Adventures 20 
l72 The Wise Women of Inverness. 10 
m White Heather 20 


B. D. Blackmore’s Works* 

67 Lorna Doone. 1st half 20 

67 Lorna Doone. 2d half 20 

44 W' The Remarkable History of Sir 

Thomas Upmore, Bart., M. P. 20 

« 015 Mary Anerley 20 

fi25 Erema; or. My Father’s Sin... 20 

029 Cripps, the Carrier 20 

030 Cradock Nowell. First half... 20 
080 Cradock Nowell. Second half. 20 

631 Christowell. A Dartmoor Tale 20 

632 Clara Vaughan 20 

633 The Maid of Sker. First half. . 20 
633 The Maid of Sker. Second half 20 

636 Alice Lorraine. First half 20 

636 Alice Lorraine. Second half.. 20 

Miss M. E. Braddon’s Works. 

85 Lady Audley’s Secret 20 

56 Phantom Fortune 20 

74 Aurora Floyd ^ 

UO Under the Red Flag 10 


153 The Golden Calf 21 

204. Vixen 20 

211 The Octoroon 10 

234 Barbara ; or, Splendid Misery. . 20 

263 An Ishmaelite 20 

315 The Mistletoe Bough. Edited 

by Miss Braddon 20 

434 Wyllard’s Weird ; 20 

478 Diavola; or, Nobody’s Daugh- 
ter. Part 1 20 

478 Diavola; or, Nobody’s Daugh- 
ter. Part H 20 

480 Married in Haste. Edited by 
Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

487 Put to the Test. Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon . . .’ 20 

488 .Joshua Haggard’s Daughter.. . . 20 

489 Rupert Godwin...: 20 

495 Mount Royal 20 

496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss 

M. E. Braddon 20 

497 The Lady’s Mile 20 

498 Only a Clod 20 

499 The Cloven Foot 20 

511 A Strange World 20 

515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant 20 

524 Strangers and Pilgrims 29 

529 The Doctor’s Wife 20 

542 Fen ton’s -Quest 20 

544 Cut by the County; or, Grace 

Darnel ; 10 

548 The Fatal Marriage, and The 

Shadow in the Corner 10 

549 Dudley Carleon ; or. The Broth- 

er’s Secret, and George Caul- 
field’s Journey 10 

552 Hostages to Fortune 20 

553 Birds of Prey... 20 

554 Charlotte’s Inheritance. (Se- 

quel to “ Birds of Prey ”) . . 20 

557 To the Bitter End 20 

559 Taken at the Flood 20 

560 Asphodel 20 

561 Just as I am; or, A Living Lie 20 

567 Dead Men’s Shoes 20 

570 John Marchmont’s Legacy. . . . ^ 
618 The Mistletoe Bough. Christ- 
mas, 1885. Edited by Miss M. 

E. Braddon 20 

840 One Thing Needful; or. The Pen- 
alty of Fate 20 

881 Mohawks 20 

Works by Charlotte M. Braemet 
A.uthor of “ Dora Thorne.” 

19 Her Mother’s Sin 10 

51 Dora Thorne 20 

54 A Broken Wedding-Ring 20 

68 A Queen Amongst Women 10 

69 Madolin’s Lover 20 

73 Redeemed by Love ^ 

76 Wife in Name Only ^ 

79 Wedded and Parted 1C 

92 Lord Lynne’s Choice 10 

148 Thorns and Orange-Blossoms.. 10 

190 Romance of a Black Veil 10 

220 Which Loved Him Best? 10 

237 Repented at Leisure 20 

249 “ Prince Charlie’s Daughter ”. . 10 


SOCKET EDITION. 


Charlotte ]>!• Braeme’s Works 

(continued). 


250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Di- 
ana’s Discipline 10 

254 The Wife’s Secret, and Fair 

but False 10 

283 The Sin of a Lifetime 10 

287 At War With Herself 10 

288 From Gloom to Sunlight 10 

291 Love’s Warfare 10 

292 A Golden Heart 10 

293 The Shadow of a Sin 10 

294 Hilda 10 

295 A Woman’s War 10 

296 A Rose in Thorns 10 

297 Her Marriage Vow; or, Hilary’s 

Folly 10 

299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride 

from the Sea 10 

3(X) A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of 

Love 10 

303 Ingledew House, and More Bit- 
ter than Death 10 

804 In Cupid’s Net 10 

305 A Dead Heart, and Lady (Gwen- 

doline’s Dream 10 

306 A Golden Dawn, and Love for . 

a Day 10 

307 Two Kisses, and Like no Other 

Love 10 

308 Beyond Pardon 20 

411 A Bitter Atonement 20 

433 My Sister Kate 10 

459 A Woman’s Temptation 20 

460 Under a Shadow 20 

465 The Earl’s Atonement 20 

466 Between Two Loves 20 

467 A Struggle for a Ring 20 

469 Lady Darner’s Secret 20 

470 Evelyn’s Folly 20 

471 Thrown on the World 20 

476 Between Two Sins 10 

516 Put Asunder; or, Lady Castle* 

maine’s Divorce «... 20 

576 Her Martyrdom 20 

626 A Fair Mystery 20 

741 The Heiress of Ililldrop; or. 
The Romance of a loung 

Girl .20 

745 For Another’s Sin ; or, A Strug- 
gle for Love 20 

792 Set in Diamonds 20 

821 The World Between Them 20 

853 A True Maedalen 20 

854 A Woman’s Error 20 

Charlotte Bronte’s Works. 

15 Jane Eyre 20 

67 Shirley 20 

Rhoda Broughton’s Works. 

86 Belinda 20 

101 Second Thoughts 20 

227 Nancy 20 

645 Mrs. Smith of Longmains 10 

758 “ Good-bye, Sweetheart!” 20 

765 Not Wisely, But Too Well 20 

767 Joan. 20 




768 Red as a Rose is She 20 

' 769 Cometh Up as a Flower 20 

862 Betty’s Visions U) 

Mary E. Bryan’s Works. 

731 The Bayou Bride 26 

857 Kildee; or. The Sphinx of the 

Red House. 1st half 2^ 

857 Kildee; or. The Sphinx of the 
Red House. 2d half 2( 

Robert Buchanan’s Works. 

145 ” Storm-Beaten God and The 

Man 20 

154 Annan Water 20 

181 The New Abelard 10 

398 Matt : A Tale of a Caravan. ... 10 
646 The Master of the Mine 2<1 

Captain Fred Burnaby’s Works. 

375 A Ride to Khiva 20 

384 On Horseback Through Asia 
Minor 20 

£. Fairfax Byrrne’s Works. 

521 Entangled 20 

538 A Fair Country Maid 20 

Hall Caine’s Works. 

445 The Shadow of a Crime 20 

520 She’s All the World to Me 10 

Rosa Nouchette Carey’s Works. 

215 Not Like Other Girls 20 

396 Robert Ord’s Atonement 20 

551 Barbara Heathcote’s Trial 20 

608 For Lilias 2C 

Lewis Carroll’s Works. 

462 Alice’s Adventures in Wonder- 
land. Illustrated by John 

Tenniel 20 

789 Through the Looking-Glass, 
and Wha^ Alice Found There. 


Illustrated by John Tenniel. . 20 

Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron’s Works.. 


595 A North Country Maid 20 

796 In a Grass Country 20 

Wilkie Collins’s Works. 

52 The New Magdalen 10 

102 The Moonstone 20 

167 Heart and Science 20 

168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

175 Love’s Random Shot, and Other 

Stories 10 

233 ” I Say No;” or. The Love-Let- 
ter Answered 20 

508 The Girl at the Gate 10 

591 The Queen of Hearts 20 

613 The Ghost’s Touch, and Percy 

and the Prophet 10 

623 My Lady’s Money 10 

701 The Woman in White. 1st half 20 

701 The Woman in White. 2d half 20 

702 Man and Wife. 1st half 20 

702 Man and Wife. 2d half 20 

764 The Evil Genius 20 


iv 


THE SEASroE LIBRARY. 


IVlabel Collins’s Works. 


749 Lord Vanecourt’s Daughter J20 

828 The Prettiest Woman in Warsaw 20 

Hugh Conway’s Works. 

240 Called Back 10 

251 The Daughter of the Stars, and 
Other Tales 10 

301 Dark Days 10 

302 The Blatchford Bequest 10 

502 Carriston’s Gift 10 

525 Paul Vargas, and Other Stories 10 

543 A Family Affair 20 

601 Slings and Arrows, and Other 

Stories 10 

711 A Cardinal Sin 20 

804 Living or Dead 20 

830 Bound by a Spell 20 

J. Fenimore Cooper’s Works. 

60 The Last of the Mohicans 20 

63 The Spy 20 

S09 The Pathfinder 20 

310 The Prairie 20 

318 The Pioneers ; or, The Sources 

of the Susquehanna 20 

349 The Two Admirals 20 

359 The Water-Witch 20 

361 The Red Rover 20 

373 Wing and Wing 20 

378 Homeward Bound; or, The 

Chase 20 

379 Home as Found. (Sequel to 

“ Homeward Bound”) 20 

380 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted 

Knoll 20 

385 The Headsman; or. The Ab- 

baye des Vignerons 20 

394 The Bra VO 20 

397 Lionel Lincoln; or. The Leag- 
uer of Boston 20 

400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish. . . 20 

413 Afloat and Ashore.. 20 

414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel to 

“Afloat and Ashore”) 20 

416 The Ways of the Hour 20 

416 Jack'I’ier; or. The Florida Reef 20 

419 TheChainbearer; or, The Little- 

page Manuscripts 20 

420 Satanstoe; or. The Littlepage 

Manuscripts 20 

421 The Redskins; or, Indian and 

Injin. Being the conclusion 
of the Littlepage Manuscripts 20 

422 Precaution 20 

i2S The Sea Lions; or. The Lost 

Sealers 20 

424 Mercedes of Castile; or, The 

Voyage to Catha}’ 20 

425 The Oak-Openings ; or, The Bee- 

Hunter 20 

431 The Monikins 20 


B. M. Croker’s Works. 

207 Pretty Miss Neville 20 

260 Proper Pride 10 

412 Some One Else 2C 

May Croinmelin’s Works. 

452 In the West Countrie. 20 

619 Joy; or. The Light of Cold- 

Home Ford 20 

647 Goblin Gold 10 

Alphonse Daudet’s Works. 

534 Jack 20 

574 The Nabob: AStory of Parisian 
Life and Manners 20 

Charles Dickens’s Works. 

10 The Old Curiosity Shop 20 

22 David Copperfield. Vol. 1 20 

22 David Copperfield. Vol. H 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. 1 20 

24 Pickwick Papers. Vol. II 20 

37 Nicholas Nickleby. First half. 20 
37 Nicholas Nickleby. Second half 20 

41 Oliver Twist 20 

77 A Tale of Two Cities 20 

84 Hard Times 10 

91 Barnaby Rudge. 1st half 20 

91 BarnabV Rudge. 2d half 20 

94 Little Derrit. First half 20 

94 Little Dorrit. Second half 20 

106 Bleak House. First half 20 

106 Bleak House. Second half 20 

107 Dombey and Son. 1st half 20 

107 Dom bey and Son. 2d half..... 20 

108 Tlie Cricket on the Hearth, and 

Doctor Marigold 10 

131 Our Mutual Friend. (Isthalf). 20 

131 Our Mutual Friend.- (2d half).. 20 

132 Master Humphrey’s Clock 10 

152 The Uncommercial Traveler. .. 20 

168 No Thoroughfare. By Dickens 

and Collins 10 

169 The Haunted Man 10 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 

Chuzzlewit. First half 20 

437 Life and Adventures of Martin 

Chuzzlewit. Second half. ... 20 

439 Great Expectations . ^ 

440 Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings 10 

447 American Notes 20 

448 Pictures From Italy, and The 

Mud fog Papers. &c 20 

454 The Mystery of Edwin Drood.. 20 
456 Sketches by Boz. Illustrative 
of Every-day Life and Every- 
day People 20 

676 A Child’s Histoiy of England. 20 

Sarah Doudney’s WoiHlis. 

338 The Family Difficulty 10 

679 Wiiere Two Ways Meet 10 

F. Du Boisgobey’s Works. 

82 Sealed Lips 20 

104 The Coral Pin. 1st half ^ 

104 The Coral Pin. 2d lialf 20 

264 Pi6douche, a French Detective. 10 


Georgiana M. Craik’s Works. 

450 Godfrey Helstone 20 

606 Mrs. Hollyer .... 20 


POCKET EDITION. 


T 


F. Dn Boisffobey’s Works 

(continued). 

828 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. 

First half 

828 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. 

Second half 

453 The Lottery Ticket 

475 The Prima Donna’s Husband.. 
522 Zig-Zag, the Clown; or, The 

Steel Gauntlets 

623 The Consequences of a Duel. A 

Parisian Romance 

648 The Angel of the Bells 

697 The Pretty Jailer. 1st half 

697 The Pretty Jailer. 2d half 

609 The Sculptor’s Daughter. 1st 

half 

699 The Sculptor’s Daughter. 2d 

half 

782 The Closed Door. 1st half 

782 The Closed Door. 2d half 

851 The Cry of Blood. 1st half.... 
851 The Cry of Blood. 2d half 

“The Duchess’s” Works. 

2 Molly Bawn 

6 Portia 

14 Airy Fairy Lilian 

16 Phyllis 

25 Mrs. Geoffrey 

29 Beauty’s Daughters 

^ Faith and Unfaith 

118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and 

Eric Dering 

119 Monica, and A Rose Distill’d. .. 

123 Sweet is True Love 

129 Rossmoyne 

184 The Witching Hour, and Other 

Stories 

136 “That Last Rehearsal,” and 

Other Stories 

166 Moonshine and Marguerites.... 
171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other 

Stories 

284 Doris 

812 A Week’s Amusement; or, A 

Week in Killarney 

842 The Baby, and One New Year’s 

Eve 

390 Mildred Trevanion 

404 In Durance Vile, and Other 

Stories 

486 Dick’s Sweetheart 

494 A Malden All Forlorn, and Bar- 

617 A Passive Crime, and Other 

Stories 

641 “As It Fell Upon a Day.” 

781 Lady Branksmere 

771 A aiental Struggle 

785 The Haunted Chamber 

862 Ugly Barrington 

875 Lady Valworth’s Diamonds. . . . 

Alexander Dumas’s Works. 

65 The Three Guardsmen 

7S Twenty Years After 


259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. A 
Sequel to “ The Count of 

Monte-Cristo” 10 

262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Part 1 2i> 

262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. 

Part II 20 

717 Beau Tancrede; or. The Mar- 
riage Verdict 20 

Maria Edgeworth’s Works. 

708 Ormond 20 

788 The Absentee. An Irish Story. 20 

Mrs. Annie Edwards’s Works, 

644 A Girton Girl 20 

834 A Ballroom Repentance 20 

835 Vivian the Beauty 20 

836 A Point of Honor 20 

837 A Vagabond Heroine 10 

838 Ought We to Visit Her?..: 20 

839 Leah; A Woman of Fashion... 20 

841 Jet: Her Face or Her Fortune? 10 

842 A Blue-Stocking 10 

843 Archie Lovell 20 

844 Susan Fielding 20 

^5 Philip Earnscliffe; or. The Mor- 
als of May Fair 20 

846 Steven Lawrence. First half. 20 
846 Steven Lawrence. Second half 20 
850 A Playwright’s Daughter 10 

George Eliot’s Works. 

3 The Mill on the Floss 20 

31 Middlemarch. 1st half 20 

31 Middlemarch. 2d half .. 2? 

34 Daniel Deronda. 1st half 20 

34 Daniel Deronda. 2d half 20 

36 Adam Bede 29 

42 Romola 20 

693 Felix Holt, the Radical 20 

707 Silas Marner: The Weaver of 

Raveloe 10 

728 Janet’s Repentance 10 

762 Impressions of Theophrastus 
Such 10 

B. 1j. Farj eon’s Works. 

179 Little Make-Believe 10 

573 Love’s Harvest 20 

607 Self-Doomed 10 

616 The Sacred Nugget 20 

657 Christmas Angel 10 

G. Manville Fenn’s Works, 

193 The Rosery Folk 10 

558 Poverty Corner 20 

587 The Parson o’ Dumford 20 

609 The Dark House 10 

Octave Feuillet’s Works, 

66 The Romance of a Poor Young 

Man 10 

386 Led Astray : or, “ La Petite 

Comtesse ’’ 10 

Mrs, Forrester’s Works, 

80 June 

280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So 

cieLv 10 


20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

10 

20 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

20 

10 

10 

10 

20 

20 

10 

10 

20 

20 

20 


d 


THE SEASmE LIBRAEY. 


Mrs. Fori'ester’s Works 
(continued). 

484 Although He Was a Lord, and 

Other Tales 

715 I Have Lived and Loved 

721 Dolores 

724 5Iy Lord and My Lady 

726 My Hero 

727 Fair Women 

729 Mignon 

732 From Olympus to Hades 

734 Viva 

736 Roy and Viola 

740 Rhbna 

744 Diana Carew; or, For a Wom- 
an’s Sake 

883 Once Again 

Jessie Fothergill’s Works. 

814 Peril 

572 Healey 

It. £. Francillou’s Works. 

135 A Great Heiress: A Fortune 

in Seven Checks 

319 Face to Face : A Fact in Seven 

I'ables 

360 Ropes of Sand 

656 The Golden Flood. By R. E. 
Francillon and Wm, Senior.. 

Smile Gaboriau’s Works. 

7 File No. 113 

12 Other People’s Money 

20 Within an Inch of His Life.... 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol I !. 

26 Monsieur Lecoq. Vol. II 

33 The Clique of Gold...,i 

38 The Widow Lerouge 

43 The Mystery of Orcival 

144 Promises of Marriage 

Charles Gibbon’s Works. 

64 A Maiden Fair 

317 By Mead and Stream 

James Grant’s Works. 

566 The Royal Highlanders ; or. 
The Black Watch in Egypt... 
T81 The Secx'et Dispatch 

Miss Grant’s Works. 

222 The Sun-Maid 

555 Cara Roma 

Arthur Griffiths’s Works. 

614 No. 99 

680 Fast and Loose 

H. Rider Haggard’s Works. 

432 The Witch’s Head 

753 King Solomon’s Mines. 

Thomas Hardy’s Works. 

139 The Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid 

530 A Pair of Blue Eyes 

6!)0 Far From the llladdinc: Crowd. 
791 The Mayor of Casterbridge. ... 


John 11. Harwood’s Works. 


143 One False, Both Fair 20 

358 Within the Clasp 20 

Mary Cecil Hay’s Works. 

65 Back to the Old Home 10 

72 Old Myddelton’s Money 20 

196 Hidden Perils 10 

197 For Her Dear Sake 20 

224 The Arundel Motto 20 

281 The Squire’s Legacy 20 

290 Nora’s Love Test 20 

408 Lester’s Secret 20 

678 Dorothj'^’s Venture 20 

716 Victor and Vanquished ... 20 

849 A Wicked Girl 20 

Mrs. Cashel-Hoey’s Works. 

313 The Lover's Creed 20 

802 A Stern Chase 20 

Tighe Hopkins’s Works. 

509 Nell Hafifenden 20 

714 ’Twixt Love and Duty 20 

Works by the Author of ** Judith 
Wynne.” 

332 Judith Wynne 20 

506 Lady Lovelace 20 

William H^ G. Kingston’s Works. 

117 A Tale of the Shore and Ocean. 26 

133 Peter the Whaler 10 

761 AVill Wearherhelm 20 

763 The Midshipman, Marmaduke 

Merry 20 

Vernon Lee’s Works. 

399 Miss Bro\Vn 20 

859 Ottilie: An Eighteenth Century 
Idyl. By Vernon Lee. The 
Prince of the 100 Soups. Edit- 
ed by Vernon Lee 20 

Charles Lever’s Works. 

191 Harry Lorrequer 20 

212 Charles O’Malley, the Irish Dra- 
goon. First half 20 

212 Charles O’Mallej', the Irish Dra- 
goon. Second half 20 

243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” First 

half... 20 

243 Tom Burke of “ Ours.” Sec- 
ond half 20 

Mary Linskill’s Works. 

473 A Lost Son 20 

620 Between the Heather and the 

Northern Sea 20 

Mrs. £. Lynn Linton’s Works. 

122 lone Stewart 20 

817 Stabbed in the Dark 10 

Samuel Lover’s Works. 

GG3 Handy Andy 20 

GG4 Rory O’More ^ 


10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

10 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

10 

10 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 


POCKET EDITION. ‘ 


vJi 


Sir E. Bulwer Eytfon’s Works. 


40 Tlie Last Days of Pompeii 20 

88 A Strangre Story 20 

90 Ernest Maltravers 20 

130 The Last of the Barons. First 

half 20 

130 The Last of the Barons. Sec- 
ond half 20 

162 Eugrene Aram ^ 

164 Leila; or, TheSiegre of Grenada 10 
650 Alice: or, The Mysteries. (A Se- 
quel to “ Ernest Maltravers ”) 20 
720 Paul Clifford 20 

Georare Macdonald’s Works. 

282 Donal Grant .... 20 

325 The Portent 10 

326 Phantastes. A Faerie Romance 

for Men and Women 10 

722 What’s Mine’s Mine 20 

E. Marlitt’s Works* 

652 The Lady with the Rubies 20 

858 Old Ma’m’selle’s Secret 20 


Justin McCarthy’s Works. 

121 Maid of Athens 20 

602 Camiola ^ 

685 E n g: 1 a n d Under Gladstone. 

1880—1885 20 

747 Our Sensation Novel, EditM 
by Justin H. McCarthy, M.P.. 10 
779 Doom 1 An Atlantic Episode. .. 10 

Mrs, Alex. McV eigh Miller’s 
Works, 


267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls’ 

Conspiracy 20 

268 Lady Gay’s Pride; or, The 

Miser’s Treasure 20 

269 Lancaster’s Choice 20 

316 Sworn to Silence; or. Aline 

Rodney’s Secret 20 

% 

Jean Middlemas’s Works, 

155 Lady'^ Muriel’s Secret 20 

539 Silvermead ^ 


Alan Muir’s Works. 


Florence Marryat’s Works. 

159 A Moment of Madness, and 


Other Stories 10 

183 Old Contrairy, and Other 

Stories 10 

208 The Giiost of Charlotte Cray, 

and Other Stories 10 

276 Under the Lilies and Roses.... 10 

444 The Heart of Jane Warner 20 

449 Peeress and Player.. 20 

689 The Heir Presumptive 20 

825 The Master Passion 20 

860 Her Lord and Master 20 

861 My Sister the Actress 20 

863 “ My Own Child.” 20 

864 ” No Intentions.” 20 

865 Written in Fire 20 

866 Miss Harrington’s Husband... 20 

867 The Girls of Feversham 20 

868 Petronel 20 

869 The Poison of Asps 10 

flTO Out of His Reckoning 10 

872 With Cupid’s Eyes 20 

878 A Harvest of Wild Oats 20 

877 Facing the Footlights 20 


Captain Marryat’s Works. 


172 “Golden Girls” 20 

346 Tumbledown Farm 10 

Miss Mulock’s Works. 

11 John Halifax, Gentleman 20 

245 Miss Tommy, and In a House- 

Boat 10 

808 King Ai’thur. Not a Love ^ory 20 

David Christie Murray’s Works, 

58 By the Gate of the Sea 10 

195 “ The Way of the World ” 20 

320 A Bit of Human Nature 10 

661 Rainbow Gold 20 

674 First Person Singular 20 

691 Valentine Strange 20 

695 Hearts: Queen, Knave, and 

Deuce 20 

698 A Life’s Atonement. 20 

737 Aimc Rachel 10 

826 Cynic Fortune 20 


Works by the author of “ My 
Ducats and My Daughter.” 

376 The Crime of Christmas Day. 10 
596 My Ducats and My Daughter. .. 26 


88 The Privateersman 20 

272 The Little Savage 10 

Helen B. Mathers’s Works. 

13 Eyre’s Acquittal 10 

221 Cornin’ Thro’ the Rye 20 

438 Found Out 10 

5^ Murder or Manslaughter? 10 

673 Story of a Sin 20 

713 “Cherry Ripe ” . 20 

7% Sam’s Sweetheart 20 

798 The Fashion of this World ID 


799 My Lady Green Sleeves. 20 


W. £. Norris’s Works. 


184 ThirlbyHall 20 

^7 A Man of His Word 10 

355 That Terrible Man 10 

.500 Adrian Vidal 20 

824 Her Own Doing 10 

848 My Friend Jim 10 

871 A Bachelor’s Blunder 20 

Laurence Oliphant’s Works, 

47 Altiora Peto 20 

587 Piccadilly 10 


vlii 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 


Mrs. Oliphant’s Works. 

45 A Little Pilgrim 

177 Salem Chapel 

205 The Minister’s Wife 

821 The Prodigals, and Their In- 
heritance 

337 Memoirs and Resolutions of 
Adam Graeme of Mossgray, 
including some Chronicles of 

the Borough of Fendie 

345 Madam 

351 The House on the Moor 

357 John 

370 Lucy Crof ton 

371 Margaret Maitland 

377 Magdalen Hepburn : A Story of 

the Scottish Reformation 

402 Lilliesleaf ; or, Passages in the 
Life Qf Mrs Margaret Mait- 
land of Sunnyside 

410 Old Lady Mary 

527 The Days of My Life 

528 At His Gates 

568 The Perpetual Curate 

569 Harry Muir 

603 Agnes. 1st half 

603 Agnes. 2d half 

604 Innocent. Ist half 

604 Innocent. 2d half 

605 Ombra 

645 Oliver’s Bride 

655 The Open Door,and The Portrait 

687 A Country Gentleman 

703 A House Divided Against Itself 
710 The Greatest Heiress in England 

827 Effle OgUvie 

880 The Son of His Father 

“ Ouida’s ” Works. 

4 Under Two Flags 

8 Wanda, Countess von Szalras.. 

116 Moths 

128 Afternoon and Other Sketches. 

226 Friendship 

228 Princess Napraxine.... 

238 Pascarel 

239 Signa... 

433 A Rainy June 

6.39 Othmar 

671 Don Gesualdo 

672 In Maremma. First half 

672 In Maremma. Second half 

874 A House Party 

James Payn’s Works. 

48 Thicker Than Water 

186 The Canon’s Ward 

343 The Talk of the Town 

577 In Peril and Privation 

589 The Luck of the Darrells 

823 The Heir of the Ages ... 

Miss Jane Porter’s Works. 
660 The Scottish Chiefs. 1st half.. 
660 The Scottish Chiefs. 2d half.. 
696 Thaddeus of Warsaw 

Cecil Power’s Works. 

336 Phillstia 

611 Babylon 


Mrs. Campbell Praed’s Works. 


428 Zero; A Story of Monte-Carlo. 10 
477 Affinities 10 

811 The Head Station 20 

Eleanor C. Price’s Works. 

173 The Foreigners 20 

331 Gerald ^ 

Charles Reade’s Works. 

46 Very Hard Cash 20 

98 A Woman-Hater 20 

206 The Picture, and Jack of All 

Trades 10 

210 Readiana: Comments on Cur- 
rent Events 10 

213 A Terrible Temptation 20 

214 Put Yourself in His Place ^ 

216 Foul Play 20 

‘231 Griffith Gaunt; or, Jealousy... ^ 

232 Love and Money ; or, A Perilous 

Secret 10 

235 “It is Never Too Late to 
Mend. ’ ’ A Matter- of -Fact Ro- 
mance 20 

Mrs. J. H. Riddell’s Works. 

71 A Struggle for Fame 20 

593 Berna Boyle 20 

“Rita’s” Works. 

252 A Sinless Secret 10 

446 Dame Durden 20 

598 “Corinna.’’ A Study 10 

617 Like Dian’s Kiss 20 

F. W. Robinson’s Works. 

157 Milly’sHero 20 

217 The Man She Cared For 20 

261 A Fair Maid ^ 

455 Lazarus in London 20 

590 The Courting of Mary Smith. . . 20 

W. Clark Russell’s Works. 

85 A Sea Queen 20 

109 Little Loo ^ 

180 Round the Galley Fire 10 

209 John Holdsworth, Chief Mate. . 10 

223 A Sailor’s Sweetheart 20 

592 A Strange Voyage ^ 

682 In the Middle Watch. Sea 

Stories 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. 1st half 20 

743 Jack’s Courtship. 2d half ^ 

Adeline Sergeant’s Works. 

257 Beyond Recall 10 

812 No Saint. 20 

Sir Walter Scott’s Works. 

28 Ivanhoe 20 

201 The Monastery ^ 

202 The Abbot. (Sequel to “The 

Monastery ’’) 20 

353 The Black Dwarf, and A Le- 
gend of Montrose 20 

862 The Bride of Lammermoor 20 

363 The Surgeon’s Daughter 10 

364_ Castle Dangerous 10 


10 

20 

30 

10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

10 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

10 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 

20 


POCKET EDITION. 


ix 


Sir Walter Scott’s Works 

(CONIINUED^. 

891 The Heart of Mid-Lothian 20 

892 Peveril of the Peak ^ 

393 The Pirate 20 

401 Waverley 20 

417 The Fair Maid of Perth; or, St. 

Valentine’s Day 20 

418 St. Ronan’s Well ^ 

463 Redgauntlet. A Tale of the 

Eighteenth Century 20 

507 Chronicles of the Oanongate, 
and Other Stories 10 

William Sime’s Works* 

429 Boulderstone ; or, New Men and 

Old Populations 10 

580 The Red Route 20 

697 Ilaco the Dreamer 10 

649 Cradle and Spade 20 

Hawley Smart’s Works. 

348 From Post to Finish. A Racing 

Romance 20 

367 Tie and Trick 20 

550 Struck Down 10 

847 Bad to Beat 10 

Frank £. Smedley’s Works. 

333 Frank Fairlegh; or, Scenes 
from the Life of a Private 

Pupil 20 

562 Lewis Arundel; or, The Rail- 
road of Life 20 

T. W. Speight’s Works, 

150 For Himself Alone 10 

653 A Barren Title 10 

Robert Louis Sterensun’s Works. 

686 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and 

Mr. Hyde 10 

704 Prince Otto 10 

832 Kidnapped 20 

85.5 The Dynamiter 20 

856 New Arabian Nights 20 

Julian Sturgis’s Works. 

405 My Friends and I. Edited by 

Julian Sturgis 10 

694 John Maidment 20 


Kugene Sue’s Works, 

270 The Wandering Jew. Parti... 20 

270 The Wandering Jew. Part II. . 20 

271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. 20 
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. 20 

George Temple’s Works., 


699 Lancelot Ward, M.P 10 

642 Britta 10 

William M. Thackeray’s Works. 

^ Vanity Fair 20’ 

165 The History of Henry Esmond. 20 

The Newcomes. Parti 20 

4M The Newcomes. Part 11 20 

670 The Rose and the Ring, lllus- 
’^rated........ lO 


Works by the Author of “The 
Two Miss Flemings.’’ 


637 What’s His Offence? 20 

780 Rare Pale Mai'garet 20 

784 The Two Miss Flemings 20 

831 Pomegranate Seed 20 

Annie Thomas’s Works. 

141 She Loved Him! 10 

142 Jenifer 20 

565 No Medium 10 

Anthony Trollope’s Works. 

32 The Land Leaguers 20 

93 Anthony Trollope’s Autobiog- 
raphy 20 

147 Rachel Ray 20 

200 An Old Man’s Love 10 

531 The Prime Minister. 1st half.. 20 
531 The Prime Minister. 2d half... 20 

621 The Warden 10 

622 Harry Heathcote of Gan^oil. . . lO 

667 The Golden Lion of Granpere.. 20 
700 Ralph the Heir. 1st half... ..20 

700 Ralph the Heir. 2d half 20 

775 The Three Clerks 20 

Margaret Veley’s Works, 

298 Mitchelhurst Place 10 

6^ “ For Percival ” 20 

Jules Verne’s Works. 

87 Dick Sand; or, A Captain at 

Fifteen 20 

100 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. 20 
368 The Southern Star ; or, the Dia- 
mond Land 20 

395 The Archipelago on Fire 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. Illustrated. 

Part I 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. Illustrated, 

Partn 10 

578 Mathias Sandorf. Illustrated. 

Partin 10 

659 The Waif of the “ Cynthia ”... 29 
751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 
gators. First half 20 

751 Great Voyages and Great Navi- 
gators. Second half 20 

833 Ticket No. ” 9672.” First half. . 10 

L. B. Walford’s Works. 

241 The Baby’s Grandmother 10 

2^ Mr. Smith : A Part of His Life, 20 
258 Cousins 20 

668 The History of a Week 10 

F. Warden’s Works. 

192 At the World’s Mercy 10 

248 The House on the Marsh 10 

286 Deldee; or. The Iron Hand — 20 

482 A Vagrant Wife 20 

.556 A Prince of Darkness 26 

820 Doris’s Fortune 10 


X 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


William Ware’s Works. 

709 Zenobia; or. The Fall of Pal- 
myra. 1st half 20 

709 Zenobia; or. The Fall of Pal- 
myra. 2d half 20 

760 Aurelian; or, Rome in the Third 

Century 20 

E. Werner’s Works. 

327 Raymond’s Atonement 20 

540 At a High Price 20 

fJ. 'J. Whyte-Melville’s Works. 

409 Roy’s Wife 20 

451 Market Harborough, and Inside 
the Bar 20 

John Strange Winter’s Works. 

492 Mignon ; or, Booties’ Baby. Il- 
lustrated 10 

600 Houp-La. Illustrated 10 

^8 In Quarters with the 25th (The 
Black Horse) Dragoons. ..... 10 

688 A Man of Honor. Illustrated.. 10 
746 Cavalry Life: or, Sketches and 

Stories in Barracks and Out. . 20 
813 Army Society. Life in a Gar- 


rison Town 10 

818 Pluck 10 

876 Mignon’s Secret 10 

Mrs. Henry Wood’s Works. 

8 East Lynne 20 

265 The Mystery 20 

277 The Surgeon’s Daughters 10 

508 Tiie Ilnholy Wish 10 

513 Helen Whitney’s Wedding, and 

Other Tales 10 

514 The Mystery of Jessy Page, and 

Other Tales 10 

610 The Story of Dorothy Grape, 
and Other Tales 10 

Charlotte M. Yonge’s Works. 

247 The Armourer's Prentices 10 

275 The Three Brides 10 

535 Henrietta’s Wish; or, Domi- 
neering 10 

563 The Two Sides of the Shield 20 

640 Nuttie’s Father 20 

665 The Dove in the Eagle’s Nest.. 20 

666 My Young Alcides: A Faded 

Photograph 20 

739 The Caged Lion 20 

742 Love and Life 20 

783 Chantry House 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls ; or. The 
White and Black Ribaumont. 

First half 20 

790 The Chaplet of Pearls; or, The 
White and Black Ribaumont. 

Second half 20 

800 Hopes and Fears; or, Scenes 
from the Life of a Spinster. 

First half 20 

SOO Hopes and Fears; or. Scenes 
from the Life of a Spinster. 
Second half 20 


Miscellaneous. 

The Story of Ida.'' Francesca. . 10 
Charlotte Temple. Mrs. Row- 

son 10 

Barbara’s History. Amelia B. 

Edwards ' 20 

Rose Fleming. Dora Russell . . 10 
A Noble Wife. John Saunders 20 
The Little School-master Mark. 

J. H. Shorthouse 10 

The Waters of Marah. John 

Hill 20 

Mrs. Carr’s Companion. M. G. 

Wightwick 10 

Some of Our Girls. Mrs. C. J. 

Eiloart 20 

Diamond Cut Diamond. T. 

Adolphus Trollope 10 

Tom Brown’s School ays at 

Rugby. Thomas Hughes 20 

Adrian Bright. Mrs. Caddy. . . . 20 
Tlie Captain’s Daughter. From 


the Russian of Pushkin 10 

The Ducie Diamonds. C. Blath- 

erwick 10 

“For a Dream’s Sake.” Mrs. 

Herbert Martin 20 

The Starling. Norman Mac- 

leod, D.D 10 

Her Gentle Deeds. Sarah Tytler 10 
The Lady of Lyons. Founded 
on the Play of that title by 

Lord Lytton 10 

Winifred Power. Joyce Dar- 
rell 20 

A Great Treason. Mary Hop- 

pus < 30 

Under a Ban. Mrs. Lodge 20 

An April Day. Philippa Prit- 

tie Jephson 10 

More Leaves from the Journal 
of a Life in the Highlands. 

Queen Victoria 10 

The Millionaire 20 

Dita. Lady Margaret Majeudie 10 
The Midnight Sun. Fredrika 

Bremer 10 

A Husband’s Story 10 

John Bull and His Island. Max 
O’Rell 10 


Agnes Sorel. G. P. R. James. . 20 
Lady Clare : or. The Master of 
the Forges. Georges Ohnet 10 
The Two Orphans. D’Ennery. 10 
The Amazon. Carl Vosmaer. . 10 
The Water-Babies. Rev. Chas. 

Kingsley..... 10 

Alice, Grand DnchesS of Hesse, 
Princess of Great Britain and 
Ireland. Biographical Sketch 

and Letters 10 

Little Goldie : A Story of Wom- 
an’s Love. Mrs. Sumner Hay- 
den 20 

The Gambler’s Wife 20 

John Bull’s Neighbor in Her 
True Light. A “ Brutal Sax- 
on ” 1® 


53 

61 

99 

103 

105 

111 

112 

113 

114 

115 

120 

127 

149 

151 

156 

158 

160 

161 

163 

170 

174 

176 

178 

182 

185 

187 

198 

203 

218 

219 

242 

253 

266 

274 

279 

285 

289 


POCKET EDITION. 


Misceiraneous— Continued. 


311 Two Years Before the Mast. R. 

H. Dana, Jr 20 

323 A Willful Maid 20 

329 The Polish Jew. (Translated 

from the French by Caroline 
A. Merighi.) Erckmann-Chat- 
rian 10 

330 May Blossom ; or, Between Two 

Loves. Margaret Lee 20 

834 A Marriage of Convenience, 

Harriett Jay 10 

335 The White Witch 20 

340 Under Which King? Compton 

Reade 20 

341 Madolin Rivers; or. The Little 

Beauty of Red Oak Seminary. 

Laura Jean Libbey 20 

347 As Avon Flows, Henry Scott 

Vince 20 

350 Diana of the Crossways. George 

Meredith 10 

852 At Any Cost, Edward Garrett. 10 
854 The Lottery of Life. A Story 
of New York Twenty Years 
Ago. John Brougham 20 


355 Tne Princess Dagomar of Po- 

land. Heinrich Felbermann. 10 

356 A Good Hater. Frederick Boyle 20 
365 George Christy ; or. The Fort- 
unes of a Minstrel. Tony 


Pastor 20 

366 The Mysterious Hunter; or. 
The Man of Death. Capt. L. 

C. Carleton 20 

369 Miss Bretherton. Mrs. Hum- 
phry Ward 10 

374 The Dead Man’s Secret. Dr. 

Jupiter Paeon 20 

381 The Red Cardinal. Frances 

Elliot 10 

382 Three Sisters, Elsa D’Esterxe- 

Keeling 10 

383 Introduced to Society. Hamil- 

ton Aid6 10 

387 The Secret of the Cliffs. Char- 

- lotte Frwich 20 

889 Ichabod. A Portrait. Bertha 

Thomas 10 

403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole- 
ridge 20 

406 The Merchant’s Clerk. Samuel 

Warren 10 

407 Tylney Hall. Thomas Hood. .. 20 
426 Venus’s Doves. Ida Ashworth 

Taylor 20 

430 A Bitter Reckoning, Author 

of “By Crooked Paths ’’ — 10 

435 Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg 

Castle. George Taylor 20 

436 Stella. Fanny Lewald 20 

441 A Sea Change. Flora L. Shaw. 20 

442 Riinthorpe. George Henry 

Lewes 20 

443 The Bachelor of tlie Albany. . . 10 
457 The Russians at tiie Gates of 

Herat. Charles Marvin 10 


A Week of Passion; or. The 
Dilemma of Mr. George Bar- 


ton the Younger. Edward 

Jenkins 20 

The Fortunes, Good and Bad, 
of a Sewing-Girl. Charlotte 

M. Stanley 10 

Serapis. An Historical Novel. 

George Ebers 20 

Louisa. Katharine S. Macquoid 20 
Betwixt My Love and Me. By 
author of “ A Golden Bar ’’. . . 10 
Tinted Vapours. J. Maclaren 

Cobban 10 

Societj' in London. A Foreign 

Resident 10 

Colonel Enderby’s Wife. Lucas 

Malet 20 

Mr. Butler’s Ward, F. Mabel 

Robinson 20 

Curly : An Actor’s Story. John 

Coleman 10 

The Society of London, Count 

Paul Vasili 10 

A Mad Love. Author of “ Lover 

and Lord’’ 10 

The Waters of Hercules 20 

The Hidden Sin 20 

James Gordon's Wife 20 

Madame De Presnel. E. Fran- 
ces Poynter 20 

Arden Court, Barbara Graham 20 

Hazel Kirke. Marie Walsh 20 

Dissolving Views. Mrs. Andrew 

Lang 10 

Vida’s Story, By the author of 
“Guilty Without Crime’’.. . 10 
Mrs. Keith’s Crime. A Novel . . 10 
Paul Crew’s Story. Alice Co- 

mynsCarr 10 

The Finger of Fate. Captain 

Mayne Reid 20 

The Betrothed. (I Promessi 
Sposi.) Allessandro Manzoni 20 
Lucia, Hugh and Another. Mrs. 

J. H. Needed 20 

Victory Deane. Cecil Griffith . . 20 

Mixed Motives 10 

Lancelot Ward, M.P. George 

Temple 10 

My Wife’s Niece. By’ the author 
of “ Dr. Edith Romney ”..... 20 
Primus in Indis. M. J. Colqu- 

houn 10 

Wedded Hands. By the author 

of “My Lady’s Folly ’’ 20 

The Unforeseen, Alice O’Hau- 

lon 20 

The Rabbi’s Spell. Stuart C. 

Cumberland 10 

The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey 
Crayon, Gent. Washington 

Irving 20 

“ Us.’’ An Old-fashioned Story. 

Mrs. Molesworth 10 

The Mystery of Allan Grale, 

Isabella Fyvie Mayo 20 

Half-Way, An xinglo-French 
Romance 20 


458 

468 

474 

479 

483 

485 

491 

493 

501 

504 

505 

510 

512 

518 

519 

526 

532 

533 

536 

545 

546 

571 

575 

581 

582 

583 

584 

599 

612 

624 

628 

634 

641 

043 

654 

662 

668 


xii 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY. 


Miscellaneous— Continued. 

669 The Philosophy of Whist. 

William Pole 20 

675 Mrs. Dymond. Miss Thackeray 20 
681 A Singer’s Story, May Laffan. 10 

683 The Bachelor Vicar of New- 

forth. Mrs. J. Harcourt-Roe. 20 

684 Last Days at Apswich 10 

692 The Mikado, and Other Comic 

Operas. Written by W. S. 
Gilbert. Composed by Arthur 
Sullivan 20 

705 The Woman I Loved, and the 

Woman Who Loved Me, Isa 
Blagden 10 

706 A Crimson Stain. Annie Brad- 

shaw 10 

712 For Maimie’s Sake. Grant 

Allen 20 

718 Unfairly Won. Mrs. Power 

O’Donoghue 20 

719 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 

Lord Byron 10 

723 Mauleverer’s Millions. T. We- 

myss Reid 20 

725 My Ten Years’ Imprisonment. 

Silvio Pellico 10 

730 The Autobiography of Benja- 
min Franklin 10 

735 Until the Day Breaks. Emily 

Spender 1 . 20 

738 In the Golden Days. Edna 

Lyall 20 

748 Hui-rish: A Study. By the 

Hon. Emily Lawless 20 


750 An Old Story of My Farming 
Days. Fritz Reuter. 1st half 20 
750 An Old Story of My Farming 
Days. Fritz Reuter. 2d half 20 
752 Jackanapes, and Other Stories. 

Juliana Horatia Ewing • • . • - • • 10 

754 How to be Happy Though Mar- 

ried. By a Graduate in the 
University of Matrimony 20 

755 Margery Daw 20 

756 The Strange Adventures of Cap- 

tain Dangerous. A Narrative 
in Plain English. Attempted 
by George Augustus Sala — 20 


757 Love’s Martyr. Laurence Alma 


Tadema 10 

759 In Shallow Waters. Annie Ar- 

mitt 20 

766 No, XIII; or. The Story of the 
Lost Vestal. Emma Mar- 
shall 10 

770 The Castle of Otranto. Hor- 
ace Walpole 10 

773 The Mark of Cain, Andrew 

Lang 10 

774 The Life and Travels of IMungo 

JQ 

776 Thve Goriot, Honor6 be Bal- 

zac 20 

777 The Voyages and Travels of 

of Sir John Maundeville, Kt. . 10 

778 Society’s Verdict. By the au- 

thor of “My Marriage” 20 

786 Ethel Mildmay’s Follies. By au- 
thor of “ Petite’s Romance ”. 20 
793 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of 
Beaconsfield. First half 20 

793 Vivian Grey. By the Rt. Hon. 
Benjamin Disraeli. Earl of 
Beaconsfield. Second half .. . 20 
801 She Stoops to Conquer, and 
The Good-Natured Man. Oli- 
ver Goldsmith 10 

803. Major Frank. A. L. G. Bos- 
boom-Toussaint 20 


807 If Love Be Love. D. Cecil Gibbs 20 

809 Witness My Hand. By author 

of “ Lady Gwendolen’s Tryst ” 10 

810 The Secret of Her Life. Ed- 

ward Jenkins.,., 30 

816 Rogues and Vagabonds. By 
George R. Sims, author of 

“’Ostler Joe” 20 

822 A Passion Flower. A Novel. . . . ^ 
852 Under Five La'kes. M. Quad.. 20 
879 The Touchstone of Peril. A 
Novel of Anglo-Indian Life, 
With Scenes During the Mu- 
tiny. By R. E. Forrest.. .... 20 


[When ordering hy mail please order hy numbers.] 

Persons who wish to purchase the foregoing works in complete and un 
abridged form are cautioned to order and see that they get The Seaside 
Library, Pocket Edition, as works published iu other libraries are fre- 
quently abridged and incomplete. Every number of The Seaside Library 
is unchanged and unabridged. 

Newsdealers wishing catalogues of The Seaside Library, Pocket Edi- 
tion, bearing their imprint, will be supplied on sending their names, 
addresses, and number required. 

The works in The Seaside Library, Pocket Edition, are printed from 
larger type and on better paper than any other series published. 

The foregoing works are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to 
any address, postage free, on receipt of price, by the publisher. Address 


GEORGE MUNRO, Munro’s Pnlilisliin^ House, 


P. O. Box 3761. 


17 to 27 Vandewater Street. New York. 


THE SEASIDE LIBRARY.-Pocket Edition. 


Always Uncliang^ed and Una1>ridg:ed. 

LATES'J' ISSUES: 


NO t>i7Tr*ir 

669 Pole on Wliist 20 

432 THE WITCH’S HEAD. By 
H. Rider Haggard 20 

901 A Lucky Disappointment. By 

Florence IMarryat 10 

902 A Poor Gentleman. By Mrs. 

Olipliaut 20 

903 Pliylfida. By Florence Marryat 20 

904 The Holy Rose. By Walter Be- 

sant 10 

905 The Fair-Haired Alda. By Flor- 

ence Manyat 20 

906 The World Went Very Well 

Then. By Walter Besant 20 

907 The Bright Star of Life. By B. 

L. Farjeou 20 

908 A Willful Young Woman 20 

909 The Nine of Hearts. By B. L. 

Fat jeon 20 

910 She: A Histoiy of Adventure. 

By H. Rider Haggard 20 

911 Golden Bells: A Peal in Seven 

Changes. By R. E. Francillon 20 

912 Pure Gold. By Mrs. H. Lovett 

Cameron 20 

913 The Silent Shore. By John 

Bloundelle-Burton 20 

914 Joan Wentworth. By Katharine 

S. Macquoid 20 

915 That Other Person. By Mrs. 

Alfred Hunt 20 

916 The Golden Hope. By W. Clark 

Russell. First half 20 

916 The Golden Hope. By W. Clark 

Russell. Second half 20 

917 The Case of Reuben Malachi. 

By H. Sutherland Edwards.. 10 

918 The Red Band. By F. Du Bois- 

gobej'. First half 20 

918 The Red Band. By F. Du Bois- 

gobey. Second half 20 

919 Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, 

etc. Bv Alfred, Lord Tenny- 
son, P.L., D.C.L 10 

920 A Child of the Revolution. By 

the author of “Mademoiselle 
Mori” 20 

921 The Late Miss Hollingford. By 

Rosa Mulholland 10 

922 Marjorie. By Charlotte M. 

Braeme, autlior of “ Dora 

Thorne.” First half 20 

922 Marjorie. By Charlotte M. 
Braeme, author of “ Dora 
Thorne.” Second half 20 


NO. PRICK. 


923 At War With Herself. By Char- 
lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne,” (Large type 
edition) 20 

925 The Outsider. Hawley Smart.. 20 

926 Springhaven. By R. D.. Black- 

more 20 

930 Uncle Max. By RosaNouchette 

Carey ; 20 

932 Queen ie’s Whim. Rosa Nou- 

chette Carey. First half 20 

932 Queenie’s AVhim. Rosa Nou- 

chette Carey. Second half.. 20 

933 A Hidden Terror. By Mary Al- 

bert 20 

934 Wooed and Married. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey. 1st half. . . 20 

934 Wooed and Married. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey. 2d half... 20 

935 Borderland. Jessie Fothergill. 20 

936 Nellie’s Memories. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey. 1st half... 20 

936 Nellie's Memories. By Rosa 

Nouchette Carey. 2d half... 20 

937 Cashel Bj'ron’s Profession. By 

George Bernard Shaw 20 

938 Cranford. By Mrs. Gaskell 20 

939 W’hy Not? Florence Marryat.. 20 

940 The Blerry Men, and Other 'tales 

and Fables. By Robert Louis 
Stevenson 20 

941 Jess. By H. Rider Haggard. .. 20 

942 Cash on Delivery. By F. Du 

Boisgobey 20 

943 W'eavers and Weft; or, “ Love 

that Hath Us in His Net.” By 
Miss M. E. Braddon 20 

944 'the Professor. By Charlotte 

Brontd 20 

945 The Trumpet-Major. Thomas 

Hardy 20 

946 The Dead Secret. B3' Wilkie 

Collins 20 

947 Publicans and Sinners: or, Lu- 

cius Davoren. First half 20 


947 Publicans and Sinners: or. Lu- 

cius Davoren. Second half.. 20 

948 The Shadow of a Sin. By Char- 


lotte M. Braeme, author of 
“ Dora Thorne.” (Large type 

edition) 20 

949 Claribel’s Love Story; or, 
Love’s Hidden Depths. Bj’ 
Charlotte M. Braeme, author 
of “ Dora Thorne ” 20 


'the foregoing works, contained in Thk Skasidk Library, Pocket Edition, 
are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any address, postage free, on 
receipt of price. Parties ordering by mail will please order by numbers. Ad- 

<4E<>KGK IHUNUO, 

IHIJNRO’S PUHIilSIilNG HOUSE, 


p. 0, Box 375J. 


17 to 27 Vandewater Street, N Y. 


JUST ISSUED. 


JUST ISSUED 


JULIET COESON’S 

NEW FAMILY COOK BOOK. 

BY MISS JULIET CORSON, 

Author of “Meals for the Million,” etc., etc. 
Superintendent of the New York School, op Cookery, 


FfilCB: HANSSOUELY BOUND IN CLOTH, $1.00. 

A COMPEEHESSIYE COOK BOOK 

For Family Use in City and Country. 

CONTAINING 

PRACTICAL RECIPES AND FULL AND PLAIN DIREC- 
TIONS FOR COOKING ALL DISHES USED 
IN AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS. 

The Best and Most Economical Methods of Cooking Meats, Fish, 
Vegetables, Sauces, Salads, Puddings and Pies. 

How to Prepare Relishes and Savory Accessories, Picked-np Dishes, 
Soups, Seasoning, Stuffing and Stews. 

How to Make Good Bread, Biscuit, Omelets, Jellies, Jams, Pan* 
cakes. Fritters and Fillets. 


Miss Corson is the best American writer on cooking. All of her recipes 
have been carefullj' tested in the New York School of Cookery. If her direc- 
tions are carefully followed there will be no failures and no reason for com- 
plaint. Her directions are always plain, very complete, and easily followed. 

Juliet Corson’s New Family Cook Book 

Is sold by all newsdealers. It will be sent, postpaid, on receipt of prioe: 
handsomely bound in cloth, $1.00. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, 

Munro’s Publishing House, 

P. O. Box 8751. 17 to 27 Vandewater St., N. Y, 


MUNRO’S PUBLICATIONS. 


The New York Fashion Bazar Book of the Toilet. 

PRICE ti5 CENTS. 

This is a little book which we can recommend to every lady for the Preserva- 
tion and Increase of Health and Beauty. It contains full directions for all the 
arts and mysteries of personal decoration, and for increasing the natural 
graces of form and expression. All the little affections of the skin, hair, eyes 
and body, that detract from appearance and happiness, are made the sub- 
jects of precise and excellent recipes. Ladies are instructed how to reduce 
their weight without injury to health and without producing pallor and weak- 
ness. Nothing necessary to a complete toilet book of recipes and valuable 
advice and information has been overlooked in the compilation of this volume. 

For sale by all newsdealers, or sent by mail to any address, postage pre- 
paid, on receipt of price, 25 cents, by the publisher. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing House, 

(P. O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


The New York Fashion Bazar Book of Etiquette. 

PRICE as CENTS. 

This book is a guide to good manners and the ways of fashionable society; 
a complete hand-book of behavior: containing all the polite observances of 
modern life; the Etiquette of engagements and marriages; the manners and 
training of child I'en; the arts of conversation and polite letter-writing; invi- 
tations to dinners, evening parties and entertainments of all descriptions; 
table manners, etiquette of visits and public places; how to serve breakfasts, 
luncheons, dinners and teas; how to dress, travel, shop, and behave at hotels 
and watering-places. This book contains all that a lady and gentleman re- 
quires for correct behavior on all social occasions. 

For sale by all newsdealers, or sent by mail to any address on receipt of 
price, 25 cents, postage prepaid, by the publisher. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, Munro’s Publishing House, 

(P. O. Box 3751.) 17 to 27 Vandewater Street, New York. 


THE NEW YORK FASHION BAZAR 

Model Letter-Writer and Lovers’ Oracle. 

PRICE 25 CENTS. 

This book is a complete guide for both ladies and gentlemen in elegant 
and fashionable letter- writing: containing perfect examples of every form of 
correspondence, business letters, love letters, letters to relatives and friends, 
wedding and reception cards, invitations to entertainments, letters, accepting 
and declining invitations, letters of introduction and recommendation, letters 
of condolence and duty, widows’ and widowers’ letters, love letters for all 
occasions, proposals of marriage, letters between betrothed lovers, letters of 
a young girl to her sweetheart, correspondence relating to household man- 
agement, letters accompanying gifts, etc. Every form of letter used in affairs 
of the heart will be found in this little book. It contains simple and full di- 
rections for writing a good letter on all occasions. The latest foryis used in 
the best society have been carefully followed. It is an excellent manual of 
refei'ence for all forms of engraved cards and invitations 

For sale by all newsdealers, or sent by mall to any address, postage paid, 
on receipt of price, 25 cents, by the publisher. Address 

GEORGE MUNRO, JIunro’s Publishing House, 

17 to 27 Vandewater Sti’eet. New York. 


(P. O. Box 3751.) 







JPEART JRANSPARENT 'SHA\mQ'C STICK. 

lOOyMrs established ax.the cleanest and best preparation for SHAVING, it 
makes a profuse,_|j‘e.anyjand.Fra^rant Lather, which leaves the Skin snioothjClean,cK)l 

" SOAP & CASE y.. 


and^comfortabla. 


PE-ARS’ SOAP — THE GEEAT ENGLISH COM 
FLEXION SOAP — IS SOLD THKOUGHOUT THE UNITED 
STATES AND ALL OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD, AND 
ITS PRAISES ARE HEARD AND ECHOED EVERYWHERE. 


THE 


New York Fashion Bazar. 

THE BEST AMERICAN HOME MAGAZINE. 

Price 85 Cents Per Copy : $3.00 Per Year. 


All yearly subscribeis on our list on the first of December will be 
entitled to a beautiful chromo, entitled: 

“ HAPPY ASA KING.” 

The New York Fashion Bazar is a magazine for ladies. It 
contains everything which a lady’s magazine ought to contain. 
The fashions in dress which it publishes are new and reliable. Par- 
ticular attention is devoted t(> fashions for children of all ages. Its 
plates and descriptions will assist every lady in the preparation of 
her wardrobe, both in making new dresses and remodeling old ones. 
The fashions are derived from the best houses and are always prac- 
tical as well as new and tasteful. 

Every lady reader of The New York Fashion Bazar can make 
her own dresses with the aid of Munro’s Bazar Patterns. These are 
carefully cut to measure and pinned into the perfect semblance of the 
garment. They are useful in altering old as well as in making new 
clothing. 

The Bazar Embroidery Supplements form an important part of 
the magazine. Fancy work is carefully described and illustrated, 
and new patterns given in every number. 

All household matters are fully and interestingly treated. Home 
information, decoration, personal gossip, correspondence, and recipes 
for cooking have each a department. 

Among its regular conti ibutors are Mary Cecil Hay, “ The Duch- 
ess,” author of “ Molly Bawn,” Lucy Kandall Comfort, Charlotte 
M. Braeme, author of “Dora Thorne,” Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller 
and Mary E. Bryan. 

The’ stories published in The New York Fashion Bazar are the 
best that can be had. 

GEORGE MUNRO, Publisher, 

‘ P. O. Box 3751. 17 TO 27 Vandewater Street, N. Y. 



THE CELEBRATED 


GRAND, SQUARE AND UPRIGHT PIANOS. 



ARE AT PRESENT THE MOST POPITEAR 


FIRST PRIZE 

DIPLOMA. 

Centennial Exnibi- 
tion, 1876; Montreal, 
1881 and 1882. 

The enviable po- 
sition Sohmer & 
Co. hold among 
American Piano 
Manufacturers is 
solely due to the 
merits of their in- 
struments. 


They are used 
in Conservato- 
ries, Schools and 
Seminaries, on ac- 
count of their su- 
perior tone and 
unequaled dura- 
bility. 

The SOHMER 
Piano is a special 
favorite with the 
leading musicians 
and critics. 


AND PREFERRED BY THE LEADING ARTISTS. 

SOHMER & CO., Manufacturers, No. 149 to 155 E. 14lli Street, N. Y. 


THE 


ii 


Short Line Limited” 


TO 


St. Paul and Minneapolis. 



THE 


“Shore Line Limited” 


TO 


Milwaukee and Waukesha. 


IT TRAVERSES THE MOST DESIRABLE PORTIONS OF 

ILLINOIS, IOWA, NEBRASKA, WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA, DAKOTA, 
WYOMING AND NORTHERN MICHIGAN. 

^THE . POPULAR • SHORT- LINEi^ 

BETWEEN 

CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE, MADISON, ST. PAUL, 

OMAHA, COUNCIL BLUFFS, DENVER, 

PORTLAND, OREGON, 

AND ADD POINTS IN THE WEST AND NORTHWEST. 

PALACE SLEEPING CARS, PALATIAL DINING CARS 

AND SUPERB DAY COACHES ON THROUGH TRAINS. 

Close Connections in Union Depots with Branch and Connecting Lines. 

ALL AGENTS SELL TICKETS VIA THE NORTH-WESTERN. 


MINNEAPOLIS, 
SAN FRANCISCO, 


New York Office, 409 Broadway. 
Boston Office, 6 Stale Street. 
Minneapolis Office, 13 Mcollet Honse. 


Chicago Office, 62 Clark St. 
Omaha Office, 1411 Farniiin St. 
Si. Paul Lfliee, 159 £. Third St. 


Benver Office, 8 Windsor Hotel Block. 

San Irancisco Office, 2 New Montgomery St. 
Milwaukee Office, 102 Wisconsin Street. 


R . S . Hair, General Passenger Agent, CHICAGO, ILL. 








.. 


I 







I ^ 


I 


4 


I 


« 



r 




I 


' NT 







»• ■ • ^'•- 


^ ■ 

• ^.'*< \ 
K 


« • 


• * '* ■, ' ■ ^ ' 




i.« 

« ‘ 4 


i • 


, ' ^ 

^ ’ ' L’ ' 


^-.T 


. «> 


I • 


■i : 


• f 


•.^ ':'3 


* * 


J. 


•* i ' 

■■^^; 'v; 

AM- 

*♦• A- 

• ir 




4 


% 



e^ 



• > r • 
^ f 


9 


y 





* ’ 


N - •■ 


i. V 


s . 


* 


i\-», y*. 






’fs ' ' V 
>■ 

fr 








\ '^-V /i') 

I > - * 


* .*■ 4 


m- - 

'■if 




■V ;v..a;v>v V v- 


4 

5 


- r T? 

'i - 

JWT-W^j 


■w!5r»,'.,'Vi:7 ■’•''■ 

■K-t" 4 k '.I'® I , 

P%.' ; • ‘ ^'.V • / - *■' ' 

ft* Is i » » S' .\^ '_ * • 


.' '•■\ * ^ ' I*','. - ‘1 


/ - 


« • 


.1 ♦ 



/ 


■ ' ' ' • :^- 

' '' I 




y-i*4' ."r 

M 


- • A. * 

_L • ^ V 

^ ' - 



* 


'V' 


r'f "' ^ 


\- y- -.V' ■' I* ' ■' -^ * ^ ' ' ’■ 

iv>BI 5 ' V. 

l.' «K . / . 


-■'!♦, 

• ' 


'r".: 

• ' VJ 


!■••«»* * ^ «■ - ^ • J 

>- • ' • » , ' ■ ^ f */. 


“7 


W 


?!■ . , • -■ . ''^‘-e -A ■ ', ■“ 



'^i . . • 

. • * . ‘'‘V 

,*/' . \r' :* •• 

■*V 



> 


I I • 


4 t t 

I % 


— — V ■ .^r ^ ' 



;■ 

• < » I • 

•l , J * • '• • »^ 

- ' ' • ' ■ '• ■ 

■'■ 'AAi. 


,/ ■ ■■‘■‘S'-. 


'•<. 1 - 


-*'.4 W 
*• » . ^ 


«tI ' fi* - ■ *. 


• '* 

if- 

• - I I t - • t 

■Kw"' ’ 


- .' y 


■ ►r 'V ■ 


:w^m. '- y^V: 


• • 




/ 


) 

• 


i 

( 

1 

,* 

• 

$ • ' 

v'^' 

• 










'■ V 






■ > ^ i. 

• ' - r 

,.“i K'-' ' < 



'.I 




; S 


• < \ I 


is 


<» » 




• rr"/' 



?»-jV j *.'is .‘-i /; « \l'‘' -.- Vi* • ^ *0 '•■ ^ 'tvJ^ . 


4 . ^ ^ ^ 


Vr- 1 / ■ '* • 


‘ i 


■■' '■' \ !’’■ ''’ f '■'■ ’''fP f 



> r ■ 

' r 

• 

» 

t m • 

'll' • - 

\ 

t 

r .. 

m 

m^m ^ 






>* ‘ ' # - JHRsA^r JEifl ' ‘ > . ■ . r * • . ^ . 1 • ' ' I 

K' j^; . ^ - Vv *• ’t.jK.,,; ;^.* ' -■,'■*■' 

■> >,V/ ' 

J-' *• • WfflSo'i »v^•‘ r, u.' - . •. 

u I. ' / ‘ ^ ..• ■* . '•wv/.v^»^.u7»vj.w /.'m. -v. 


V 

■ ■' SA ; 



f *1 . 










. ',S 5 



••/v.O.’si!. ►\v.;*» 



Wv fr 

iV'#' -'v- /.*' ^ *' V- J. ■' - xr ' 

‘ "• ^:vApy,\ ' ' ^ '■ -‘a - 





-ai 






» s 




■'* I ; * I ' -"i i T 1 1 ■■ ‘Y 

'. ■ ’ >t^-i/ri,mVj'. <j ^P' ■ v'^'iA' r 'v',. ..- *■ ' 


fu 


V' ^ 

t Kt 





•t 


I 





4 


I 

\ 
















\ M '.V 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


□aoai7D3sis 


• ^ . 






4 A %• * X - •. , * • . . . r- f •.* . . • r ^ • » \ fl 

• f J j. V - *• ♦ - - - 4* * »- # !• 

s - f ^ 4 • i» » //- 



-tlv 

. 4 . J •.••*.''. n 4 V 


:.* -v. ' • \ v 

;••;■ vv;^)\Vs\v * ^ 

' - • r '\V vv 

4 ••*' »* *. 4 ..* 

'.V » • . 

! ' } '-. ••*- 

/•*,.' ' > '»**•» .♦ ) 

■V:‘'VV = :‘VV''^ 

^ ' r r 4 . 

J # « • » 

.• ■ / • . ‘ ‘ ■ .■‘ .’“ ; 

■ ■■ .■ : ' ■ ; . 




• • . « i ^ i 



